How to tell if a file is git tracked (by shell exit code)?

Is there a way to tell if a file is being tracked by running some git command and checking its exit code?

In other words: is git tracking a file?

try:

git ls-files --error-unmatch <file name>

will exit with 1 if file is not tracked

If you don't want to clutter up your console with error messages, you can also run

git ls-files file_name

and then check the result. If git returns nothing, then the file is not tracked. If it's tracked, git will return the file path.

This comes in handy if you want to combine it in a script, for example PowerShell:

$gitResult = (git ls-files $_) | out-string
if ($gitResult.length -ne 0)
{
    ## do stuff with the tracked file
}

EDIT

If you need to use git from bash there is --porcelain option to git status:

--porcelain

Give the output in a stable, easy-to-parse format for scripts. Currently this is identical to --short output, but is guaranteed not to change in the future, making it safe for scripts.

Output looks like this:

> git status --porcelain
 M starthudson.sh
?? bla

Or if you do only one file at a time:

> git status --porcelain bla
?? bla

ORIGINAL

do:

git status

You will see report stating which files were updated and which ones are untracked.

You can see bla.sh is tracked and modified and newbla is not tracked:

# On branch master
# Changed but not updated:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#
#       modified:   bla.sh
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#       newbla
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")