Git Commands

Add

• git add -A stages all changes
  • = git add . + git add -u
• git add . stages new files and modifications, without deletions (on the current directory and its subdirectories)
  • For Git >= 2.0, git add . will add deletions! Use flag --ignore-removal to ignore deletion
  • Therefore, git add -A is redundant for Git >= 2.0
• git add -u stages modifications and deletions, without new files

Combine add and commit

git commit -am "commit message"

is equal to

git add -u
git commit -m "commit message"

Alias

git config --global alias.ac "commit -am"
git ac "commit message"

is equal to

git commit -am "commit message"

Branch

# Create a branch
git branch -M main
# Rename a branch
git branch -M master main

Log in Terminal

To get better log info like in the GUI

git log --graph --oneline --decorate

Stash

stash store your changes without commit, remove them now, and pop out when you need them again

# Store all your changes without commit, and hide them
git stash
# Pop out your hidden changes
git stash pop
# Stash your changes with a given name
git stash save "your stash name"
# Show all your stashes
git stash list
# Apply a certain stash in the list
git stash apply index

Ignore

To ignore some files or directories, add them to the .gitignore file. However, this will not work for files/dirs that have already been tracking. To remove those files/dirs from git tracking (not delete them), use

git rm -r --cached path_to_file_or_dir

New Branch

# Create a new branch called new_branch
git branch new_branch
# Checkout (switch) to the new branch
git checkout new_branch

These two commands have a shorthand:

git checkout -b new_branch

Discard Branch

When a branch is pulled/merged into main, it is no longer needed.

git branch -d patch # delete branch
git fetch -p        # stop tracking obsolete remote branches (prune)

Remotes

# View the remotes
git remote -v
# Add a remote called origin
git remote add origin git@github.com:zcysxy/repo.git
# Change the url of the remote origin
git remote set-url origin https://github.com/zcysxy/repo.git

When forking an other's repo, remember to add the other's repo as an upstream repo.

git remote add upstream git@github.com:yiyi/repo.git

Discard Changes

# Restore several files
git restore file1 file2 file3

# Restore all
git restore .

Get Files from Other Branches

To get files from other branches, you can either use checkout command or restore command.

# main branch
git checkout other_branch -- file1 file2
# or
git restore --source other_branch -- file1 file2

Show Tracked Files

List all the files currently being tracked under the branch master

git ls-tree -r master --name-only

Remote Status

To show what's going on in the remote branches, you need to fetch/update them first, then compare the differences.

# Method 1
git fetch origin
git diff origin/master
git merge origin/master

# Method2
git remote update
git status

List Files

ls-files

git ls-files # Show information about files in the index and the working tree
    [-c|--cached] [-d|--deleted] [-o|--others] [-i|--|ignored]
    [-s|--stage] [-u|--unmerged] [-k|--|killed] [-m|--modified]
    [--directory [--no-empty-directory]] [--eol]
    [--deduplicate]
    [-x <pattern>|--exclude=<pattern>]
    [-X <file>|--exclude-from=<file>]
    [--exclude-per-directory=<file>]
    [--exclude-standard]
    [--error-unmatch] [--with-tree=<tree-ish>]
    [--full-name] [--recurse-submodules]
    [--abbrev[=<n>]] [--] [<file>…​]

ls-tree

git ls-tree -r main --name-only

Garbage Collection

To "collect the garbage" in the .git folder and reduce its size, use

git gc
# or spend more time optimizing using
git gc --aggressive

This command actually executes a bundle of other internal subcommands like git prune, git repack, git pack and git rerere. These subcommands identify any Git objects that are outside the threshold levels set from the git gc configuration, and then compress, or prune them accordingly.

Global .gitignore

You can create a global .gitignore file to ignore files for all git repositories. When you created that file, run the following command

git config --global core.excludesfile <path_to_your_gitignore_global>

Separate Git Directory

Sometimes, you don't want the .git directory to be in the same directory as the working tree (for example, to prevent sync issues).

cd ~/work/dir # working dir
git init –separate-git-dir ~/work/dir.git # git dir in the parent dir

Merge Changes from Another Branch

# In branch main
git merge patch_branch
# or merge from a specific commit
git cherry-pick commit-hash

Compare Current and Last Version

# HEAD~n is the nth generation ancestor of the named commit object (HEAD here)
git diff HEAD~1 HEAD
# Shortcuts
git diff HEAD~ HEAD
git diff HEAD~
git diff @~ # @ is an alias for HEAD
git show # doesn't work for merge commit

See Commit Log Between Tags

git log [tag_num]..HEAD > changelog.md

by zcysxy