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@helephant
Last active December 16, 2021 21:59
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Git command cheat sheet

Git is the perfect source control for my home projects. It is free, works on mac, linux and windows, makes it easy to share code through github and takes me out of my Microsoft technology comfort zone. Here are the basic commands I need to be productive.

Basics

Adding all changed files in the current directory to the commit:

git add .

Adding any deleted files in the current directory to the commit:

git add -u .

Seeing which files are waiting to be committed:

git status

Committing the currently staged files to a repository:

git commit -m "a very well explained commit message"

Pushing my changes to another repository:

git push origin master

Get changes from another repository and apply on top of the existing changes:

git pull origin master

Get changes from another repository, but rewind history, apply the changes and then apply the new changes on top. This makes the history more straight forward:

git pull --rebase origin master

Setting up a new repository

Creating a new repository in the current directory:

git init .

Working with remote repositories

Adding a new remote repository:

git remote add origin git@github.com:helephant/SeriesLink.git

Changing the URL of a remote repository

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:helephant/SeriesLink.git

Seeing a list of all remote repositories:

git remote -v

Cloning an existing repository:

git clone git@github.com:helephant/SeriesLink.git

Committing files

Discard current changes - rollback the file in the working directory to the latest committed version:

git checkout myfile.cs

Unstage changes - keep the changes in the working directory, but roll the version of the file in the staging index back to the last committed version:

git reset HEAD myfile.cs

Get rid of any unstaged files that have been added. -d tells git to include directories. -f is force.

git clean -df 

Commit all changed files - does the add and commit in a single step. Will only commit files that are already in the repository. New, untracked files will not be commited:

git commit --all -m "a very well explained commit message"

Ammending the last commit (because you've forgotten files or messed up the commit message):

git commit --ammend

Seeing differences between your working directory and the staging index:

git diff -w

Seeing differences between your working directory and the last commit:

git diff -w HEAD

History

Viewing the history of a file:

git log src/series-link.php

View the complete history of a file that has been renamed:

git log --follow src/series-link.php

View the summary of the last 3 commits:

git log -n 3 --format=oneline HEAD

Search through the history of a file for a term:

git log -S command-line --format=oneline style.css

Search through versions of a file for changes that involve the search term:

git diff -S "latest-post" master~2 master~4 style.css

Viewing more details about the last commit:

git show

Viewing more details about a particular commit:

git show 9d35508c249f1e7060c54165fe0767c01f598359

Seeing differences between two commits for a file:

git diff afb13de89c3 eb72e0b5182  -- style.css

Rolling back a file

Rolling back a file to the last commited version (just replaces the file with the last commited version).

git checkout myfile.cs

Unstage changes - keep the changes in the working directory, but roll the version of the file in the staging index back to the last committed version:

git reset HEAD myfile.cs

Removing unstaged files:

git clean -f

Branching

Create a new branch from the latest commit:

git branch new-feature-prototype

Create a new branch and switch to it straight away:

git checkout -b new-feature-prototype

List all branches:

git branch

Switch between branches:

git checkout new-feature-prototype

Switch between branches and merge any pending changes in your working directory:

git checkout -m new-feature-prototype

View a file in another branch:

git show master:style.css

Delete a branch that you're finished with:

git branch -d  new-feature-prototype

Merging

Merging changes from a branch into the current branch:

git merge -m new-feature-prototype

Generate a commit graph to graphically see branch history:

 git log --graph --format=oneline --abbrev-commit
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