Git Version Control System

Instalation

On a Debian-based distribution, such as Ubuntu

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install git-all

On Windows download and install from git-scm.com.

Configure your user name and email address:

$ git config --global user.name "exampleusername"
$ git config --global user.email "example@gmail.com"

Creating repositories

Create a new local repository

$ cd path/to/desired/directory
$ git init

Clone an existing repository

Grab the https or ssh path from the remote (Github, GitLab, etc...) and then run:

$ git clone ssh://user@domain.com/repo.git

Working locally

Check the status of our repository:

$ git status

When we create a new file git becomes aware of it but it is still not tracking changes to that file. To instruct git to track a file run:

$ git add file1.txt

Now git is tracking the file but changes haven't been recorded as a commit yet. A commit is a record of a change. This change will be permanently recorded in our history, and can be reverted to at a later date. To make a commit we use git commit. We also add a message which should be a short desciption of changes made.

$ git commit -m "Added stuff on file 1"

The -m flag allows us add a short message to each commit. A good commit message should give a brief statement of any changes made to the file.

To commit all local changes in tracked files (however this is generally discouredged):

$ git commit -a -m "Changed something"

We can lookup recent changes made to our repository with:

$ git log

Working with remote repository

To push your local changes to the remote repository we use the following command:

$ git push origin master

To pull the current version of the repository from the remote server use:

$ git pull

If your default branch is different than master, you will need to specify the branch name:

$ git pull origin my_default_branch_name

Remove a file from version control

Remove the file from the Git repository but not from the filesystem:

$ git rm --cached file1.txt

If you want to remove a whole folder, you need to remove all files in it recursively.

$ git rm -r --cached folder_name

Then push changes to remote repo:

$ git commit -m "Removed stuff"
$ git push origin branch_name