Congratulations - you’ve now learned enough to start using Git and GitHub to work collaboratively with others. The most important take-away that we hope you will remember is that collaboration requires communication. Git and GitHub provides lots of tools for communication - but they only work if you use them. Successful teams are successful because they communicate well with each other, and there is a common level of respect and appreciation between all members. If you remember nothing else, please remember “write nice, be kind”.
As promised, there wasn’t too much more to learn in terms of git commands. Indeed, here’s the complete cheat sheet, which you can refer back to at any time.
Git Cheat Sheet
(1) git init : Tell git to start version controlling the files in a directory
(initialises git in a directory)
(2) git status : Tell git to print the status of the files in the version
controlled directory.
(3) git add : Tell git to start monitoring (tracking) the versions of a new
file, e.g. `git add README.md` will tell git to track `README.md`
(4) git commit -a : Tell git to save a new snapshot version of all of the tracked
files in the directory. The `-a` means "all files". You can
commit new versions of individual files if you want, but this
is not recommended.
(5) git diff : Tell git to show the differences between the files in the working
directory and the last saved version in the git repository. This will
show the differences for all tracked files. Use
`git diff FILENAME` to limit to only the file `FILENAME`
(6a) git checkout VERSION FILENAME : Tell git to bring `VERSION` version of `FILENAME` into the
current working directory. If `VERSION` is `main` then
restore the last version of `FILENAME` that was saved
to the repository.
(6b) git checkout VERSION : Tell git to change the working directory back to a specific `VERSION`
number. If `VERSION` is `main`, then return the working directory to
the last saved version in the repository.
(6c) git checkout BRANCH : Switch to the branch called `BRANCH`, e.g. git checkout main will
switch to the `main` branch.
(7) git log : Print a log of the versions in the repository. Use `git log -n N`
to limit to the last `N` versions. You may need to use `q` to exit
from the text viewer if there are a lot of versions to print.
(8) git mv OLD NEW : Rename a file from name `OLD` to name `NEW`.
(9) git rm FILENAME : Remove the file `FILENAME` from the working directory (it still exists
in the repository). Will only work if the file is tracked by
git and doesn't have any changes. Use `-f` to force removal of files.
(10) git push : Push versions that are saved in the local repository (.git folder)
so they are backed up to a remote repository (.git folder)
(11) git clone URL : Clone (download) a local copy of the remote repository that is available
at the specified URL. You will only be allowed to push to that repository
if you have permission. If not, then fork the repository into your
own account before cloning.
(12a) git remote -v : Show information about all of the remotes that have been configured
for a local repository.
(12b) git remote add NAME URL : Add a new remote called `NAME` that refers to the remote
repository at `URL`, e.g.
`git remote add upstream https://github.com/chryswoods/super_project.git`
will add a remote called `upstream` that refers to the original
`super_project` URL.
(13a) git pull : Pull changes from the remote repository into the local repository.
This is the opposite of git push
(13b) git pull REMOTE BRANCH : Pull changes from the specified BRANCH of the specified REMOTE into
the local repository and merge them into the working tree. For example,
`git pull upstream main` would pull changes from the default branch
of `upstream` into the local repository. By default, REMOTE is `origin`
and BRANCH is `main`, so `git pull` will pull changes from the same
remote repository that `git push` pushes to.
(14) git blame FILENAME : Print a line-by-line view of who changed each line in a file at
which commit.
(15a) git branch : Print out information about all of the branches in a repository
(15b) git branch -d BRANCH : Delete the branch called `BRANCH`This workshop has taught you how to use the tools provide by Git and GitHub to work on collaborative projects. You will learn best from practice, so have a go joining an existing project or try using Git and GitHub for your next collaborative project. Have confidence and look at the GitHub pages of software that you use. If you want to contribute, either with a new feature or to fix a bug, then feel free to fork that repository, make the change, and then send a pull request :-)
This “Git for Collaboration” workshop is based on our original Beginning Git workshop, which was developed by Christopher Woods.
All text is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License with all code snippets licensed as MIT.
The source for the material can be found on GitHub where pull requests are welcome.