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A cheat sheet on GIT.

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A cheat sheet on GIT.

Vishwa Sriram's photo
Vishwa Sriram
·Jul 23, 2022·

4 min read

Git is the free and open source distributed version control system that's responsible for everything GitHub related that happens locally on your computer. This cheat sheet features the most important and commonly used Git commands for easy reference

INSTALLATION & GUIS:

With platform specific installers for Git, GitHub also provides the ease of staying up-to-date with the latest releases of the command line tool while providing a graphical user interface for day-to-day interaction, review, and repository synchronization.

GitHub for Windows: htps://windows.github.com

GitHub for Mac: htps://mac.github.com

Git for All Platforms: htp://git-scm.com

SETUP:

Configuring user information used across all local repositories:

git config --global user.name “[firstname lastname]”

sets a name that is identifiable for credit when review version history

git config --global user.email “[valid-email]”

sets an email address that will be associated with each history marker

git config --global color.ui auto

sets automatic command line coloring for Git for easy reviewing

INIT:

Configuring user information, initializing and cloning repositories:

git init

initializes an existing directory as a Git repository

git clone [url]

retrieves an entire repository from a hosted location via URL

STAGE & SNAPSHOT:

Working with snapshots and the Git staging area:

git status

shows modified files in working directory, staged for your next commit

git add [file]

adds a file as it looks now to your next commit (stage)

git reset [file]

unstage sa file while retaining the changes in working directory

git diff

diff of what is changed but not staged

git diff --staged

diff of what is staged but not yet commited

git commit -m “[descriptive message]”

commit your staged content as a new commit snapshot

BRANCH & MERGE:

Isolating work in branches, changing context, and integrating changes:

git branch

lists your branches. a * will appear next to the currently active branch

git branch [branch-name]

creates a new branch at the current commit

git checkout switches to another branch and check it out into your working directory

git merge [branch]

merges the specified branch’s history into the current one

git log

shows all commits in the current branch’s history

INSPECT & COMPARE:

Examining logs, diffs and object information:

git log

shows the commit history for the currently active branch

git log branchB..branchA

shows the commits on branchA that are not on branchB

git log --follow [file]

shows the commits that changed file, even across renames

git diff branchB...branchA

shows the diff of what is in branchA that is not in branchB

git show [SHA]

shows any object in Git in human-readable format

TRACKING PATH CHANGES:

Versioning file removes and path changes:

git rm [file]

deletes the file from project and stage the removal for commit

git mv [existing-path] [new-path]

changes an existing file path and stage the move

git log --stat -M

shows all commit logs with indication of any paths that moved

IGNORING PATTERNS:

Preventing unintentional staging or commiting of files:

logs/
*.notes
pattern*/

Saves a file with desired paterns as .gitignore with either direct string matches or wildcard globs

git config --global core.excludesfile [file]

system wide ignores patern for all local repositories

SHARE & UPDATE:

Retrieving updates from another repository and updating local repos:

git remote add [alias] [url]

adds a git URL as an alias

git fetch [alias]

fetches down all the branches from that Git remote

git merge [alias]/[branch]

merges a remote branch into your current branch to bring it up to date

git push [alias] [branch]

Transmits local branch commits to the remote repository branch

git pull

fetches and merge any commits from the tracking remote branch

REWRITE HISTORY:

Rewriting branches, updating commits and clearing history:

git rebase [branch]

applies any commits of current branch ahead of specified one

git reset --hard [commit]

clears staging area, rewrite working tree from specified commit

#TEMPORARY COMMITS:

Temporarily store modified, tracked files in order to change branches:

git stash

Saves modified and staged changes

git stash list

lists stack-order of stashed file changes

git stash pop

writes working from top of stash stack

git stash drop

discard the changes from top of stash stack

Hope this cheatsheet helps you. Thank you for using my cheatsheet have a great day. :)