Git Commands

We installed Git and configured our settings — now it’s time to learn Git commands.

Reminder

Configure user information for all local repositories:

git config --global user.name "name"

Configure the email address for all local repositories:

git config --global user.email "email address"

This information is stored by Git along with every change you make and its timestamp.

Init

Use the init command to create a new repository.

git init

or

git init project-name

Clone

Use the clone command to download a project and its entire version history from a remote Git server.

git clone remote_repo_url

Example for GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/{your_username}/{your_repo_name}.git

Add

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add

Moves the files you’ve changed to the staged area.

You can provide the first argument pathspec as a file path or glob:

git add foo/bar/file.ex

git add *.py

By writing it this way you can move all the changes you made in Python files to the staged area. If you give . as the pathspec argument, it takes all changed files.

git add -p

Shows you the diff of your changes and moves a change to the staged area after your confirmation.

Commit

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit

Saves the changes in the staged area together with a message.

git commit -m "your_commit_message"

If you want to write over the previous commit (actually it doesn’t overwrite — it creates a new commit):

git commit --amend

When you use the --amend argument without -m, it takes the previous commit message as is. If you use -m and enter a commit message, you theoretically edit the previous commit message.

git commit --amend -m "messages"

If you’re using git-hooks (or a technology that uses git-hooks, such as pre-commit):

The --no-verify argument lets you commit while skipping hooks.

Status

For a status check, this shows you your current state — from here you can tell whether you need to run add or commit next, and it also lists the changed files.

git status

Log

Used to list and review all changes made so far.

git log

The output for each commit includes:

• Who made the commit
• When it was made
• The commit message
• The commit hash value

Reset

Used to revert to an older version when something goes wrong. After git log, copy the commit hash value of the version you want to go back to and use reset to go to that version.

git reset commit_hash_value

Undoes all commits made after the given one, while preserving changes locally.

git reset --hard commit_hash_value

Discards all history and reverts to the state of the specified commit.

Branch

Used to list branches, create new ones, and delete them.

List Branches

git branch

Create a New Branch

git branch new_branch_name

Create a New Branch and Switch to It

git checkout -b new_branch_name

Delete a Branch

git branch -d branch_name

Checkout

Allows you to switch from one branch to another. If you’re on the master branch and have a branch called new_branch that you want to switch to:

git checkout new_branch

Merge

If you want to merge the changes you made in new_branch with the master branch:

git checkout master

Switched to master branch.

git merge new_branch

Merged the changes from new_branch into master.

Or:

git pull origin master

You can use this to pull the changes from the master branch into your current branch.

Pull

Fetches (synchronizes) changes from the repository on the remote server.

git pull

or

git pull origin master

Push

Sends the changes you made locally (on your computer) to the repository on the remote server.

git push

If your changes conflict with what’s on the remote server, Git will warn you that you need to pull before pushing. If you still want to send your changes — even if it deletes what’s on the remote server — you can use:

git push -f

The -f here stands for force.

Remote

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-remote

Lets you manage other repositories connected to your Git repo.

This means you can work connected to more than one Git repository — one of them can be the original repo and the other an upstream repo. The upstream repo is the one you forked from. This way you can pull new updates from the original repo into your own fork and continue developing with an up-to-date codebase.

Type git remote -v to see the names and addresses of the repositories connected to your Git repo.

git remote add {remote name} {repo address} — for example: git remote add upstream https://github.com/user/repo.git

git remote remove {remote name} to delete an added repository.

Rebase

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rebase

Allows you to move a previously made commit to the top by editing the Git history.

git rebase moves the most recent commit you made on your current branch to the top. When might you use this? After a git pull that brings new commits into your repo, you can use it to move your unpushed changes to the top.

The Gitignore File

There may be some files we don’t want Git to track. We tell Git about these files using the .gitignore file.

There are gitignore files available for various programming languages at the address below. Depending on which language you use in your project, you can draw inspiration from this address to create your gitignore file and keep the files you don’t want Git to track under control.

https://github.com/github/gitignore