Working with Git¶

Start working on a project¶

Start your own project¶

$ git init [PROJECT]

creates a new, local git repository.

[PROJECT]

if the project name is given, Git creates a new directory and initializes it.

If no project name is given, the current directory is initialised.

Tip

The default branch in Git is master. However, as this term is offensive to some people, the default branch name can be configured in Git ≥ 2.28:

$ git config --global init.defaultBranch main

Most Git hosts also use main as the standard for new repositories.

Work on a project¶

$ git clone SOURCE

downloads a project with all branches and the entire history from the remote repository, for example:

$ git clone https://github.com/cusyio/Python4DataScience.git

$ git clone git@github.com:cusyio/Python4DataScience.git

git clone --depth: indicates the number of commits to be downloaded.
git clone -b: specifies the name of the remote branch to be downloaded.

Work on a project¶

$ git status

shows the status of the current branch in the working directory with new, changed and files already marked for commit.

git status -v: shows the changes in the stage area as a diff.
git status -vv: also shows the changes in the working directory as a second diff.

See also

git status -v

git status -s|--short

shows the status in short format, for example

$ git status -s
 M docs/productive/git/work.rst
?? Python4DataScience.txt

The preceding letters indicate the status of the file.

git status gives a lot of advice on what to do with the files in the individual states:

$ git status
On branch main
Your branch and 'origin/main' have diverged,
and have 1 and 1 different commits each, respectively.
  (use "git pull" if you want to integrate the remote branch with yours)

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
    modified:   docs/productive/git/work.rst
Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
    Python4DataScience.txt

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

If you are familiar with Git, you may find these hints unnecessary. Then you can deactivate these messages with the advice.statusHints option:

$ git config --global advice.statusHints false

From now on, calling git status will no longer display any hints:

$ git status
On branch main
Your branch and 'origin/main' have diverged,
and have 1 and 1 different commits each, respectively.

Changes not staged for commit:
    modified:   docs/productive/git/work.rst

Untracked files:
    Python4DataScience.txt

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

Also when calling git-switch and git-checkout as well as when writing commit messages, no more hints are displayed.

Tip

Although there are many other advice.* options, most of them are quite insignificant, so they should only be excluded when they start to interfere.

$ git add PATH

adds one or more files to the stage area.

git add -p: adds parts of one or more files to the stage area.
git add -e: the changes to be adopted can be edited in the standard editor.

$ git diff [PATH]

shows differences between working and stage areas, for example:

$ git diff docs/productive/git/work.rst
diff --git a/docs/productive/git/work.rst b/docs/productive/git/work.rst
index e2a5ea6..fd84434 100644
--- a/docs/productive/git/work.rst
+++ b/docs/productive/git/work.rst
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@

 :samp:`$ git diff {FILE}`
-    shows differences between work and stage areas.
+    shows differences between work and stage areas, for example:

By default, Git adds the prefixes a/ and b/ in front of the file paths to the diff format.

Tip

These prefixes are intended to mark the paths as * old* and * new* , but they prevent the file paths from being easily copied – some terminals also allow you to click on file paths to open them – but the prefixes prevent this. You can change this with a new function in Git 2.45:

$ git config --global diff.srcPrefix './'
$ git config --global diff.dstPrefix './'

index e2a5ea6..fd84434 100644 displays some internal Git metadata that you will probably never need. The numbers correspond to the hash identifiers of the git object versions.

The rest of the output is a list of diff chunks whose header is enclosed in @@ symbols. Each chunk shows changes made in a file. In our example, 7 lines were extracted starting at line 46 and 7 lines were added starting at line 46.

By default, git diff performs the comparison against HEAD. If you use git diff HEAD docs/productive/git/work.rst in the example above, it will have the same effect.

git diff can be passed Git references. Besides HEAD, some other examples of references are tags and branch names, for example git diff MAIN..FEATURE_BRANCH. The dot operator in this example indicates that the diff input is the tips of the two branches. The same effect occurs if the dots are omitted and a space is used between the branches. In addition, there is a three-dot operator: git diff MAIN...FEATURE_BRANCH, which initiates a diff where the first input parameter MAIN is changed so that the reference is the common ancestor of MAIN and FEATURE.

Every commit in Git has a commit ID, which you can get by running git log. You can then also pass this commit ID to git diff:

$ git log --pretty=oneline
af1a395a08221ffa83b46f562b6823cf044a108c (HEAD -> main, origin/main, origin/HEAD) :memo: Add some git diff examples
d650de52306b63b93e92bba4f15be95eddfea425 :memo: Add „Debug .gitignore files“ to git docs
…
$ git diff af1a395a08221ffa83b46f562b6823cf044a108c d650de52306b63b93e92bba4f15be95eddfea425

git diff --staged, --cached: shows differences between the stage area and the repository.
git diff --word-diff: shows the changed words.

See also

All files changed in the working or staging area

$ git restore FILE

changes files in the working directory to a state previously known to Git. By default, Git checks out HEAD, the last commit of the current branch.

Note

In Git < 2.23, git restore is not yet available. In this case you still need to use git checkout:

$ git checkout FILE

$ git commit

makes a new commit with the added changes.

git commit -m 'COMMIT MESSAGE': writes a commit message directly from the command line.
git commit --dry-run --short: shows what would be committed with the status in short format.
git commit -m 'FILE': passes file names or globbing patterns to git commit to commit changes to these files, skipping any changes that already exist in the staging area with git add.

$ git reset [--hard|--soft] [TARGET_REFERENCE]

resets the history to an earlier commit.

$ git rm PATH

removes a file from the work and stage areas.

$ git stash

moves the current changes from the workspace to a stash.

To be able to distinguish your hidden changes as well as possible, the following two options are recommended:

You can also automatically apply stash for merge and rebase:
$ git config --global merge.autoStash true
$ git config --global rebase.autoStash true

git stash -p|--patch

allows you to partially hide changes, for example:

$ git stash -p
diff --git a/docs/productive/git/work.rst b/docs/productive/git/work.rst
index cff338e..1988ab2 100644
--- a/docs/productive/git/work.rst
+++ b/docs/productive/git/work.rst
@@ -83,7 +83,16 @@
     ``list``
         lists the hidden changes.
     ``show``
-        shows the changes in the hidden files.
+        shows the changes in the hidden files, for example
…
(1/1) Stash this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,e,?]? y

With ? you get a complete list of options. The most common are:

Command	Description
`y`	Hide this change
`n`	Do not apply this change
`q`	All changes already selected will be hidden
`a`	Apply this and all subsequent changes
`e`	Edit this change manually
`?`	Help

Tip

Usually you have to press the ↩︎ key after every command with a letter. However, you can switch off this overhead:

$ git config --global interactive.singleKey true

git stash save MESSAGE

adds a message to the changes.

git stash branch BRANCHNAME

creates a branch from hidden files, for example:

$ git stash branch stash-example stash@{0}
On branch stash-example
Changes marked for commit:
  (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to remove from staging area).
    new file: docs/productive/git/work.rst

Changes not marked for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to mark the changes for commit).
  (use "git restore <file>..." to discard the changes in the working directory)
    changed: docs/productive/git/index.rst

stash@{0} (6565fdd1cc7dff9e0e6a575e3e20402e3881a82e) gelöscht

git stash save MESSAGE

adds a message to the changes.

git stash -u UNTRACKED_FILE

hides unversioned files.

git stash list

lists the various stashes.

git stash list --date=relative|default: also displays the relative or absolute date.

git stash show

shows the changes in the stashed files.

git stash pop

transfers the changes from the stash to the workspace and empties the stash, for example:

$ git stash pop stash 2

git stash drop

empties a specific stash, for example:

$ git stash drop stash 1
stash@{1} (defcf56541b74a1ccfc59bc0a821adf0b39eaaba) deleted

git stash clear

delete all your hiding places.