-force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point.
-
-To update and refresh only the files already checked out:
-
- git-checkout-index -n -f -a && git-update-index --ignore-missing --refresh
-
-Oh, and the "--" is just a good idea when you know the rest will be
-filenames. Just so that you wouldn't have a filename of "-a" causing
-problems (not possible in the above example, but get used to it in
-scripting!).
-
-The prefix ability basically makes it trivial to use
-git-checkout-index as an "export as tree" function. Just read the
-desired tree into the index, and do a
-
- git-checkout-index --prefix=git-export-dir/ -a
-
-and git-checkout-index will "export" the index into the specified
+force-refresh everything in the index, which was not the point. But
+since git-checkout-index accepts --stdin it would be faster to use:
+
+----------------
+$ find . -name '*.h' -print0 | git-checkout-index -f -z --stdin
+----------------
+
+The `--` is just a good idea when you know the rest will be filenames;
+it will prevent problems with a filename of, for example, `-a`.
+Using `--` is probably a good policy in scripts.
+
+
+Using --temp or --stage=all
+---------------------------
+When `--temp` is used (or implied by `--stage=all`)
+`git-checkout-index` will create a temporary file for each index
+entry being checked out. The index will not be updated with stat
+information. These options can be useful if the caller needs all
+stages of all unmerged entries so that the unmerged files can be
+processed by an external merge tool.
+
+A listing will be written to stdout providing the association of
+temporary file names to tracked path names. The listing format
+has two variations:
+
+ . tempname TAB path RS
++
+The first format is what gets used when `--stage` is omitted or
+is not `--stage=all`. The field tempname is the temporary file
+name holding the file content and path is the tracked path name in
+the index. Only the requested entries are output.
+
+ . stage1temp SP stage2temp SP stage3tmp TAB path RS
++
+The second format is what gets used when `--stage=all`. The three
+stage temporary fields (stage1temp, stage2temp, stage3temp) list the
+name of the temporary file if there is a stage entry in the index
+or `.` if there is no stage entry. Paths which only have a stage 0
+entry will always be omitted from the output.
+
+In both formats RS (the record separator) is newline by default
+but will be the null byte if -z was passed on the command line.
+The temporary file names are always safe strings; they will never
+contain directory separators or whitespace characters. The path
+field is always relative to the current directory and the temporary
+file names are always relative to the top level directory.
+
+If the object being copied out to a temporary file is a symbolic
+link the content of the link will be written to a normal file. It is
+up to the end-user or the Porcelain to make use of this information.
+
+
+EXAMPLES
+--------
+To update and refresh only the files already checked out::
++
+----------------
+$ git-checkout-index -n -f -a && git-update-index --ignore-missing --refresh
+----------------
+
+Using `git-checkout-index` to "export an entire tree"::
+ The prefix ability basically makes it trivial to use
+ `git-checkout-index` as an "export as tree" function.
+ Just read the desired tree into the index, and do:
++
+----------------
+$ git-checkout-index --prefix=git-export-dir/ -a
+----------------
++
+`git-checkout-index` will "export" the index into the specified
projects / git.git / blobdiff