Git Notes

A collection of Git command line usage and configurations. This is not a tutorial, but a reference mostly for myself when forgetting something.

Set the name and email to be used with your commits.

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "youremail@example.com"
git config --global core.editor vim

Also sets VIM as the editor for when Git require input.

To set the configuration for a specific repository, use --local instead.

Only needed if you are starting without a remote repository and only intend to work locally.

cd src/mycode
git init

Another variant is using the -C option, which tells Git to change work directory to the parameter given.

git -C src/mycode init

This works with any other command requiring a local Git repository.

Add all tracked files to the index (staging area), but not untracked ones.

git add -u

Mark an untracked file part of the repository, but do not add it to the index.

git add -N newfile.c

If a file was added by mistake to the staging area.

git restore --staged -- newfile.c

To discard changes made to a file already under version management.

git restore -- changedfile.c

Commit all deleted-, added- and modified files, but not untracked.

git commit -a -m "Commit message"

Amend (replace) last commit with additions/deletions and no commit message.

git commit --amend --no-edit

If a commit is made with a mistake, a simple command can bring it back.
Note: Not a good idea on already pushed changes.

git reset --soft HEAD^

Clone a local repository.

git clone /path/to/repository localrepository

If the remote repository is huge, a shallow clone can be done to save time.

git clone --depth 3 username@host:/path/to/repository localrepository

This is something I used before to self-host my repositories outside the home network, but it’s not really necessary since Gitea is a much better option for self-hosting your repositories.

Login to your server, create a git user.

sudo adduser git
sudo -u git mkdir /home/git/.ssh
sudo -u git chmod 700 /home/git/.ssh

On your workstation, copy your public key to the git account.

ssh-copy-id git@myserver.lan

(Now is a good time to restrict the git account to only allow public key authentication.)

Create a repository test on the remote server.

ssh git@myserver.lan 'git --git-dir=test.git --bare init'

Add the remote repository to your local repository.

cd test
git remote add origin git@myserver.lan:test.git
git push origin master

If you perform a pull and want to go back to the state before.

git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD

The same goes for a unsatisfactory merge, the command below will go back to the state before the merge.

git reset --merge ORIG_HEAD

Forking a repository is technically not much different from cloning, the idea is to have the original repository on a different remote origin and use it to synchronize your own copy with the updates.

Start by cloning a repository, then rename the remote from origin to upstream.

git clone https://github.com/xfce-mirror/libxfce4util.git libxfce4util
cd libxfce4util
git remote rename origin upstream

Add your own locations and push.

git remote add origin git@gitlab.com:apalsson/libxfce4util.git
git push -u origin --all
git push -u origin --tags

Accidental pushes to the upstream can be prevented by setting the url for push to something invalid, e.g.

git remote set-url --push upstream push_not_allowed

Add your own remote location.

git remote add origin https://gitlab.com/apalsson/libxfce4util.git

Use fetch to retrieve changes in the upstream repository.

git fetch upstream

If your repository is shared with anyone else, use the merge command to incorporate the changes into your branch, otherwise rebase is a better option that also allows for a nicer commit history.

git co master
git rebase upstream/master

Fix conflicts, proceed rebase process with git rebase --continue and in case of regret use git rebase --abort to cancel the rebasing process.

The merge command can be cancelled with git merge --abort if needed.

To create a new branch of the current one and switch to it.

git checkout -b the-new-branch

Show contents of a file in another branch.

git show newbranch:src/main.c

Show differences between two branches.

git diff master..newbranch

Compare a single file between two branches.

git diff master..feature -- src/main.c

To merge a number of commits into as single, use rebase on the commit before the ones to be merged into one. E.g. to combine the 3 last commits, then the commit b292795 should be specified for rebase. 

a9fab14 (HEAD -> master) crowdin: Add macedonian
9f132eb (tag: v1.6.6) Release v1.6.6
0924929 [ci skip] Crowdin translation bot: New translations for Ukrainian (#209)
b292795 Update translations (#203)
f82d24d Update crowdin bot commit message template

Specify the -i option to start an interactive rebase.

git rebase -i b292795

Your editor will open asking which commits to be squashed and skipped.

pick 0924929 [ci skip] Crowdin translation bot: New translations for Ukrainian (#209)
squash 9f132eb Release v1.6.6                                                    
squash a9fab14 crowdin: Add macedonian

# Rebase b292795..a9fab14 onto b292795 (3 commands)

The end-result becomes as follows.

db8c95a (HEAD -> master) # This is a combination of 3 commits. # This is the 1st commit message:
b292795 Update translations (#203)

This rewrites history of the branch, and must be force pushed if squashed commits already were pushed to repository.

Create a tag

git tag -am "3.1.2rc1"

List all tags

git tag

Find tag starting with ‘1.9’.

git tag -l "1.9.*" # List tags starting with "1.9."

Pushing the created tag to remote repository.

git push -u origin --tags

See the history of a specific file.

git log --follow --all -p -- ./src/main.c

It is possible to have multiple remote repositories, so that a push will be done to multiple repositories at the same time.

git remote set-url --add --push origin https://gitlab.com/name/repo.git
git remote set-url --add --push origin https://github.com/name/repo.git
By Andreas • Updated at Wed, 16 Dec 2020