Git cheat sheet

I'm trying to wrap my head around Git, Linus Torvalds's complicated but powerful distributed version control system. Here's some quick notes and a wad of links:

Configure

git config --global user.name "John Q. Hacker"
git config --global user.email "jqhacker@somedomain.com"

Start a new empty repository

git init

mkdir fooalicious
cd fooalicious
git init
touch README
git add README
git commit -m 'first commit'
git remote add origin git@github.com:nastyhacks/foo.git
git push -u origin master

Create a local copy of a remote repository

git clone [remote-repository]

Commit to local repository

git commit -a -m "my message"

Review previous commits

git log --name-only

See what branches exist

git branch -v

Switch to a different branch

git checkout [branch you want to switch to]

Create a new branch and switch to it

git checkout -b [name of new branch]

Merge

git merge mybranch

merge the development in the branch "mybranch" into the current branch.

Show remote repositories tracked

git remote -v

Track a remote repository

git remote add --track master origin git@github.com:jqhacker/foo.git

Retrieve from a remote repository

git fetch

Git fetch grabs changes from remote repository and puts it in your repository's object database. It also fetches branches from remote repository and stores them as remote-tracking branches. (see this.)

Fetch and merge from a remote repository

git pull

Push to a remote repository

git push

Pull changes from another fork

git checkout -b otherguy-master master
git fetch https://github.com/otherguy/foo.git master
git merge otherguy-master/master

git checkout master
git merge otherguy-master
git push origin master

Resolve merge conflict in favor of us/them

git checkout --theirs another.txt
git checkout --ours some.file.txt

Diff between local working directory and remote tracking branch

Say you're working with Karen on a project. She adds some nifty features to the source file nifty_files/our_code.py. You'd like to diff your local working copy against hers to see the changes, and prepare to merge them in. First, make sure you have a remote tracking branch for Karen's repo.

git remote add karen git://github.com/karen/our_project.git
git remote -v

The results ought to look something like this:

karen git://github.com/karen/our_project.git (fetch)
karen git://github.com/karen/our_project.git (push)
origin git@github.com:cbare/our_project.git (fetch)
origin git@github.com:cbare/our_project.git (push)

Next, fetch Karen's changes into your local repo. Git can't do a diff across the network, so we have to get a local copy of Karen's commits stored in a remote tracking branch.

git fetch karen

Now, we can do our diff.

git diff karen/master:nifty_files/our_code.py nifty_files/our_code.py

Fixing a messed up working tree

git reset --hard HEAD

return the entire working tree to the last committed state

Shorthand naming

Branches, remote-tracking branches, and tags are all references to commits. Git allows shorthand, so you mostly ever shorthand rather than full names:

• The branch "test" is short for "refs/heads/test".
• The tag "v2.6.18" is short for "refs/tags/v2.6.18".
• "origin/master" is short for "refs/remotes/origin/master".

Links

• Git User’s Manual Mostly cryptic but occasionally very helpful. See:
  • public repositories
  • resolving a merge
  • Quick Reference
  • Git Glossay
• Git Tutorial
• github's Git cheat sheets
• github on Working with remotes
• The Git Community Book
• Understanding Git Conceptually
• Git - SVN Crash Course
• The thing about Git by Ryan Tomayko
• git ready
• git equivalent of svn status -u
• git: fetch and merge, don’t pull
• Git Cheat Sheet
• Mastering Git Basics video presentation by Tom Preston-Werner of GitHub

• Think Like a Git
• Git Best Practices
• A Successful Git Branching Model