A bit of git

A git cheatsheet

git basics

From an existing repository

1. Clone repo: git clone <repo> The repo will be cloned to whatever folder you use this command from.

2. Checkout existing branch: git checkout <branch name>

3. Create new branch and checkout created branch:

4. Check current status: git status

5. To add a file: git add <file> This makes git aware of the existence of this file. It does not commit the file or it's changes!

Note: You cannot pull/merge/checkout other branch when you have uncommitted changes. You'll have to stash them.

4. To add all files: git add .

5. To merge main into your branch git merge main This will copy and apply changes from main to your branch

6. Commit changes: git commit -m "<commit message>" This commits ("saves") your changes locally, with the given commit message.

7. Add additional changes to an existing commit (i.e. expanding original commit with new changes): git commit --amend

8. Push your local commit(s) to the remote repo: git push Now your changes are also in the remote.

In a new repository

1. Use git init to add the current project to Git.

2. Check current status: git status

3. Add files you want to add to version control, by using either git add . to add all files or git add <file> to add individual files.

4. Commit changes: git commit -m "<commit message>" This commits ("saves") your changes locally, with the given commit message.

5. Create a project on GitHub and copy the location from Quick Setup

6. Add that location as a remote: git remote add origin <remote>

7. Push your local commit(s) to the remote repo: git push

git reset

To undo or discard commits, you can use

• git reset --hard <commit> to reset your HEAD to that commit and discarding any commits you made on top of that commit.

• git reset --soft <commit> to reset your HEAD to that commit without discarding the changes you made on top of that commit, but "uncommitting" them.

git commit amend

git commit -a --amend to amend to previous commit (only if you haven't pushed yet). (Note: if you use -a it will include all staged changes, so you might want to git status first).

git push force

git push --force will overwrite the status of the branch on the remote with your local status.

Note: The original status on the remote will be destroyed. If anyone on the team has that branch locally, they'll need to delete it locally and checkout the branch again to get it in the same status as the remote.

interactive rebase

git rebase -i <commit hash> to do an interactive rebase from the given commit hash.

This will open a list of commits with their hashes.

Replace pick (keep) with squash or fixup if you want to squash a commit into the previous commit in the list.

(Use squash to combine the commit messages of the individual commits; use fixup if you want to use the commit message from the first commit)

Adter saving the list, update the commit messages as needed.

Alternatively, tools like GitHub and GitLab offer the option to "squash on merge" when merging a feature branch. This will squash all commits in a branch into one commit on main.

Vi cheat sheet:

To insert (i.e. write/delete), press I

To get out of edit mode, press esc

To save and quit, type :wq

To quit without save :q!

(Note: you can replace vi with another editor! See Customizing Git)

Empty commit

git commit --allow-empty -m "Commit to trigger build"

Reflog

Recover lost git commits

Bisect

Find which commit broke the test