GIT Vademecum

GIT is a distributed version control system that facilitates Mia-Platform activities. This cheat sheet summarizes the main GIT commands and provides some guidelines to simplify your work.

Install Git

Start using Git by installing it on your PC. Visit GIT official website and download the latest GIT version for your OS.

Initial configurations

Configure valid user information for all repositories.

Set the username (name.surname) you want to show on your commits.

git config --global user.name "[name]"

Set up the business email you want to show on your commits.

git config --global user.email "[email address]"

You can also set different user information for different repositories. Open the terminal in that directory and run the commands above without the --global specification.

Recommended configurations

We recommend a series of configurations that can help you in your work.

Set fetch.prune as active to keep branches aligned remotely with your local branches.

git config --global fetch.prune true

Set the automatic rebase to the pull. It allows you to avoid unnecessary merge on a branch if more than one person is working on the same branch.

git config --global pull.rebase true

Combined with the previous configuration, autostash allows you to perform a pull even with unscheduled modifications.

git config --global rebase.autoStash true

Color your GIT for a better view of the history.

git config --global alias.gr 'log --graph --full-history --all --color --tags --decorate --pretty=format:"%x1b[31m%h%x09%x1b[32m%d%x1b[0m%x20%s %x1b[33m%aN <%ae>%x1b[0m (%aI)"'

Push local branches to remote repository without having to run --set-upstream origin

git config --global --add --bool push.autoSetupRemote true

caution

The git config --global --add --bool push.autoSetupRemote true configuration is available only for 2.37.0 (or latest) version of GIT.

Create a repository

Start with a new repository or download information from an existing URL.

Create a new local repository with its specific name.

git init [project-name]

Download a project and its entire chronology from a URL.

git clone [url]

Make changes

Review changes to the code and prepare a commit.

List all files, new or modified, to be committed.

git status

Shows the differences between the files that were added and not ignored in the staging area.

git diff

Add new files and prepare them for the commit.

git add [file]

Show differences between staged files and last modification.

git diff --staged

git reset [file]

Add the file to the local repository header.

git commit -m "[descriptive message]"

Signoff the commit with your user information. A message is required.

git commit -s

Upload all local branches to the remote repository.

git push

Manage the branch

Name your branches and join them when you finish.

Lists all branches in the current repository.

git branch

Create a new branch.

git branch -b [branch-name]

Switch to the specified branch and update the current directory.

git checkout [branch-name]

Merge the history of [branch-name] branch into the current one.

git merge [branch-name]

Delete the specified branch only if it has been merged to master.

git branch -d [branch-name]

Delete the specified remote branch.

git push origin -d [branch-name]

Make refactoring your files

Search and remove files from the history.

Remove a file from the directory and prepare for permanent deletion.

git rm [file]

Delete the file from GIT, but keep the local file.

git rm --cached [file]

Remove your files from the history

Exclude files and temporary locations.

A text file called .gitignore prevents accidental versioning of files or directories according to a specified pattern.

*.log build /TEMP-*

List all files ignored in this project.

git ls-files --others --ignored --exclude-standard

Save all changes

Archive and restore incomplete changes. Useful for remotely downloading changes while you are working and you do not want to commit and push again or to change from one branch to another without committing before.

Temporarily store all changed files.

git stash

Restore all files placed in stash from the stash archive. In this way you can merge with the changes downloaded remotely with the pull.

git stash pop

List the edited files stored in stash.

git stash list

Delete files stored in stash.

git stash drop

Review the chronology

Browse and check the evolution of the files of each project.

View the commit history of the current branch.

git log

View the history of a file, including changes.

git log --follow [file]

Show the difference between two branches.

git diff [first-branch] ... [second-branch]

Show metadata and changes made for a specific commit.

git show [commit]

Re-commit

Delete errors and alters changes history.

Delete all commits made after [commit], preserving local changes.

git reset [commit]

Delete all history and changes until the specified commit.

git reset --hard [commit]

Add signoff to an unsigned commit.

git commit --amend --signoff

Synchronize changes

Connect to a remote URL and get change history.

Download the change history from the remote repository.

git fetch [remote]

Join the remote branch with the local branch.

git merge [remote] / [branch]

Upload all changes to the local branch on the remote repository.

git push -u [remote] [branch]

Update your local repository with the online repository.

git pull