🪴 Notes by Chrissi

Useful Git Commands

Nov 22, 20243 min read

This page is focused on providing and explaining the commands I most commonly use to deal with git via the terminal. I can only recommend everyone knowing at least the basic commands even if you use external tooling.

Even though external tools add an unnecessary amount of abstraction to your workplace and understanding, I can recommend them to use for visualization.

Basics

  • normal workflow: implement your changes → save file → review changes via diff view → stage files → commit files → publish the changes also to your remote

  • initialize your project

    git init

  • preparing a commit is called staging: it means you add files to the index that will be used for the next commit

  • TODO: undo operation of git add → git reset (???)

    # adding a single file
git add path/to/file
 
# adding the files of a whole folder
git add path/to/folder/
 
# adding everything
git add --all
 
# or: add everything from the current directory
git add .

Info

Sometimes, git doesn’t track a new file yet … This also that git commit -am "..." doesn’t add it to the index. You have to explicitly add the folder or the file to the index.

  • making a commit 
    # normal commit with message
git commit -m "feat: your first commit"
 
# commit while also adding all files
# -> no need for an intermediate "add" step
git commit -am "feat: adding all files automatically"
  • push your changes: often you not only work alone but, want to synchronize your local repository with a remote repository (e.g., Github) to enable collaboration 
    # publish your changes to the default origin
git push
 
# don't do this unless you want to make your colleges hate you
git push --force

Helpers

output the current state of your git repository

this command gives you information about which files you have not versioned yet, changed or staged

git status

  • git history

    git log

  • visualizing the current changes

    # for unstaged files
git diff
 
# for staged files
git diff --cached

Merging

  • merge one branch into your current one 
    # merge branch "abc" into your current one
git merge abc

Stashing

Branching

# creates a new branch called "abc"
git checkout -b abc
 
# switch to the branch "xyz"
git checkout xyz

Working with remote

  • TODO: git clone
  • TODO: git upstream einrichten
  • pull changes: synchronize your local repository with incoming changes from the remote repository 
    # just update the information you have about the remote repository 
# without actually updating your files (nothing happens)
git fetch

    • be careful: merge conflicts can already happen here

    • no local changes and you want to pull the newest changes

      # update to your local files with changes from remote
git pull

    • you previously had the newest changes, but made some local progress after that; that could be file changes and even some commits; important: you didn’t change the files that had been updated by the remote repository (otherwise you will get merge conflicts)

      # goated command
git pull --rebase --autostash

    • you changed files that were also changed by the remote repository → merge conflicts!

      # no worries
git pull —-rebase

      After that, you can resolve the merge via your text editor and select the changes you want to keep. Then you can commit the merge.

Fixing mistakes

Advanced

  • TODO: git reset hard and soft

Submodules

on your own …

External Tooling

Visualization

Graph View

Backlinks