Terminology
origin =
main =
master =
remote =
Head =
Headless mode =
Modified =
Staged =
Committed =
Informational Commands
Git can be a little intimidating at first because it has the power to change the files you are working on, so it’s good to start with commands that don’t do anything to get a feel for the situation before you actually do something.
git config --list
Shows useful information about the current repository. Shows the remote.origin.url variable for example.
git config --get remote.origin.url
Shows just the url associated with local git repository.
git config --list --show-origin
Shows ___.
git status
Probably the most common git command.
git diff
To see changes since the last commit. Or
git diff > gitdiff.txt
for a text file of the information.
ls -al ~/.ssh
To check for SSH keys (on Linux only I think).
git log --oneline
Is useful to see all the commits in a row with their commit messages. Or
git log --oneline --decorate --graph --all
for more detailed information.
git log -p filename.py > log.txt
Makes a file with the entire change history of filename. The -p is patch text. This is great for resurrecting “lost portions” of code and replaced the file I used to keep: “unused code.txt”
git branch -v -a
Lists all the branches including remotes, with the current branch highlighted in green plus an asterisk.
git branch --show-current
Shows just the current branch.
git tag -n1
Says to list all the tags and show 1 line of annotation per tag. Default is 0 lines of annotation.
Initial Set-Up Commands and Connecting to GitHub
Notice above command to check for existing keys.
The first step is establishing an SSH key on the machine to be connected to GitHub then copy the public key to GitHub. This is a pretty good description of how to do that. Notice Git bash in Linux is just the command line of a Linux machine with Git installed while on Windows you have to open the Git bash executable for a Git-specific terminal.
git clone [github url].git
Notice the format of the remote url determines SSH versus https transfer.
To initialize, navigate to the directory where your code is stored, and:
git init
to initialize git tracking of the directory.
git add
to add files. You can add one at a time to be selective or
? how to add all the files in the directory, then ignore?
Daily “Save Your Work” is Commit
This is a pretty good list here, but it lacks informational commands.
git commit -a -m 'commit message here'
git push
Are the daily “save your work” commands.
Renaming a File
git mv old-filename.extension new-filename.extension
To rename a file, use git to rename it instead of renaming it manually. This allows git to track the rename instead of appearing to be “delete and add new.”
Deleting a File
git rm filename
To delete a file, use git to allow git to track the deletion. Don’t do it manually or it just shows up missing.
Revert a Single File to an Old Version
git checkout <commit ID> filename
There are various ways to do this (restore and revert maybe?) but I did it once like this and it worked. You have to be OK with losing any work in that file since the last commit. The point is it doesn’t affect the other files.
Branching
git branch <new-branch-name>
To create a new branch.
git switch <new-branch-name>
To switch to a different branch (same as the still-valid git checkout <new-branch-name>)
git checkout -b new-branch-name
To create a new local branch and switch to it in one command.
git push --set-upstream origin new-branch-name
? is that right, not just push?
How to create a branch on GitHub here.
Tagging
git tag -a v1.0.0 ec595fb -m 'message here'
then
git push origin v1.0.0
to tag a past commit. Version naming convention is [Major].[Minor].[Patch]
Merging
To merge, create a pull request on GitHub, then compare and merge. It’s pretty self-explanatory, THEN to update your local repository:
git fetch
because you made changes to the GitHub version, but not your local version, so the changes have to be fetched (opposite of push I think?)
git switch main
to switch to the main branch, and you should see a message saying the local main is behind origin/main, then
git pull
to pull the commits into the local branch. Merge complete.
Remote Repository (GitHub Usually)
git remote -v
lists the remote repositories.
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:rr34/Astro.git
allows you to change the remote url for the origin.
GitHub-Specific Features
The following are features in GitHub only, not classic command line Git:
- Releases – but tags are command line and also a way of doing releases.
- Pull requests