This is a beginner's guide to the Git version control system. This is mostly a note to myself, but I hope it's useful to others as well.

Getting Started

Before using Git, you need to set the user info. It will be displayed in the commit log. 

git config --glocal user.name "your name"
git config --glocal user.email "email"

Check the config file with git config --list or cat ~/.gitconfig

There are two ways to have a git repository.

  1. Creating a new repository: git init
  2. Copying from a remote repository: git clone git@example.tld:/project.git

After editing files (created gpacalculator.py in the example), check the tracking status with git status

Example output:

# On branch master # # Initial commit # # Untracked files: # (use "git add ..." to include in what will be committed) # # gpacalculator.py

Recording Changes

Start tracking gpacalculator.py with git add gpacalculator.py

  • git add . will add everything in the working directory and the subdirectories.

Now git status will show:

# Changes to be committed: # (use "git rm --cached ..." to unstage) # # new file: gpacalculator.py

git commit -m "comment" will record the change to the repository. Comments are required.

Alternatively, git commit -a will commit with all changes added and git commit -v will show the differences. See man git-commit for more options.

Logging

Branching

Remote Repositories


This guide is currently being updated.


Tips

git config --global alias.co checkout

Check Git version with git --version