`<pathspec>...`::
	When _<pathspec>_ is given on the command line, commit the contents of
	the files that match the pathspec without recording the changes
	already added to the index. The contents of these files are also
	staged for the next commit on top of what have been staged before.
+
For more details, see the 'pathspec' entry in linkgit:gitglossary[7].

EXAMPLES
--------
When recording your own work, the contents of modified files in
your working tree are temporarily stored to a staging area
called the "index" with `git add`.  A file can be
reverted back, only in the index but not in the working tree,
to that of the last commit with `git restore --staged <file>`,
which effectively reverts `git add` and prevents the changes to
this file from participating in the next commit.  After building
the state to be committed incrementally with these commands,
`git commit` (without any pathname parameter) is used to record what
has been staged so far.  This is the most basic form of the
command.  An example:

------------
$ edit hello.c
$ git rm goodbye.c
$ git add hello.c
$ git commit
------------

Instead of staging files after each individual change, you can
tell `git commit` to notice the changes to the files whose
contents are tracked in
your working tree and do corresponding `git add` and `git rm`
for you.  That is, this example does the same as the earlier
example if there is no other change in your working tree:

------------
$ edit hello.c
$ rm goodbye.c
$ git commit -a
------------

The command `git commit -a` first looks at your working tree,
notices that you have modified `hello.c` and removed `goodbye.c`,
and performs necessary `git add` and `git rm` for you.

After staging changes to many files, you can alter the order the
changes are recorded in, by giving pathnames to `git commit`.
When pathnames are given, the command makes a commit that
only records the changes made to the named paths:

------------
$ edit hello.c hello.h
$ git add hello.c hello.h
$ edit Makefile
$ git commit Makefile
------------

This makes a commit that records the modification to `Makefile`.
The changes staged for `hello.c` and `hello.h` are not included
in the resulting commit.  However, their changes are not lost --
they are still staged and merely held back.  After the above
sequence, if you do:

------------
$ git commit
------------

this second commit would record the changes to `hello.c` and
`hello.h` as expected.

After a merge (initiated by `git merge` or `git pull`) stops
because of conflicts, cleanly merged
paths are already staged to be committed for you, and paths that
conflicted are left in unmerged state.  You would have to first
check which paths are conflicting with `git status`
and after fixing them manually in your working tree, you would
stage the result as usual with `git add`:

------------
$ git status | grep unmerged
unmerged: hello.c
$ edit hello.c
$ git add hello.c
------------

After resolving conflicts and staging the result, `git ls-files -u`
would stop mentioning the conflicted path.  When you are done,
run `git commit` to finally record the merge:

------------
$ git commit
------------

As with the case to record your own changes, you can use `-a`
option to save typing.  One difference is that during a merge
resolution, you cannot use `git