lecram

Useful Git Recipes

Last updated on 2015-07-11 17:08:06 -0300

1. Basic Commands

Clone repository:

$ git clone https://foo.net/bar

Add file to index:

$ git add README.md

Check index status:

$ git status     # verbose
$ git status -s  # silent

View changes:

$ git diff            # all files
$ git diff README.md  # one file only
$ git diff --numstat  # insert/delete statistics

Commit changes:

$ git commit -m 'Commit message.'

Add all changed files to index and commit changes:

$ git commit -am 'Commit message.'

Push local commits to remote repository:

$ git push                # use default remote & branch
$ git push origin master  # specify remote & branch

Fetch commits from remote repository:

$ git fetch [remote]

Merge received commits with local commits:

$ git merge

Fetch and merge remote commits with local commits:

$ git pull [remote] # equivalent to `git fetch [remote]; git merge`

2. Remote repositories

Show remotes:

$ git remote -v

Add remote:

$ git remote add foo https://foo.net/bar

Remove remote:

$ git remote rm foo

Rename remote:

$ git remote rename foo bar

3. Tags

There are two types of tags: lightweight and annotated.

A lightweight tag is just a named pointer to a specific commit.

Annotated tags have commit-like metadata (date, author, description, etc). They are useful for identifying releases.

By default, tags created locally aren't transfered via push. You can send tags to a remote repository by specifying the tag name or using the --tags option.

List tags:

$ git tag           # all tags
$ git tag -l 'v1*'  # tags starting with v1

Create lightweight tag:

$ git tag foo [commit] # last commit is used by default

Create annotated tag:

$ git tag -a v1.4 -m "Version 1.4." [commit] # last commit is used by default

See tag (and associated commit) metadata:

$ git show v1.4

Send tag to remote repository:

$ git push [remote] v1.4

Send all local tags to remote repository:

$ git push [remote] --tags

Rename a tag:

$ git tag new old -m "Repeat tag message here."
$ git tag -d old
$ git push origin :old
$ git push --tags

4. Branches

List branches:

$ git branch # current working branch is shown with a star (*)

Create branch:

$ git branch issue33

Work on branch (move HEAD):

$ # this will change local files to reflect the branch state!
$ git checkout issue33

Create branch and work on it:

$ git checkout -b issue33 # equivalent to `git branch issue33; git checkout issue33`

Send branch to remote repository:

$ git push -u origin issue33

Receive branch from remote repository:

$ git checkout --track origin/issue33

Merge branches:

$ git checkout master  # move HEAD back to master
$ git merge issue33    # add changes from branch to master

Delete branch:

$ git branch -d issue33

5. Patches

A simple patch file can be created with diff:

$ git diff > foo.patch

This is mainly useful for uncommited changes. We can apply that patch to a working directory with apply:

$ git apply foo.patch

For commited changes, the command format-patch is more suitable. For example, to create a single patch file with the last 10 commits:

$ git format-patch -10 HEAD --stdout > bar.patch

Note that format-patch will add commit metadata to the patch file, so it's the recommended way to generate patches that will be sent via email to maintainers.

To apply a patch of commits to a repository, we use the am command:

$ git am bar.patch

6. Archives

Create archive of HEAD:

$ git archive -o latest.zip HEAD

Create archive of tag v1.4.0:

$ git archive --prefix=git-1.4.0/ -o git-1.4.0.tar.gz v1.4.0

Extract archive to another place:

$ git archive --prefix=project/ HEAD | tar xC /tmp

7. Hooks

Take some action after receiving a push on master:

#!/bin/sh
# -- repo/hooks/post-receive --
while read oldrev newrev refname
do
    branch=`git rev-parse --symbolic --abbrev-ref $refname`
    if [ "master" == "$branch" ]; then
        # Do something
    fi
done

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