Useful Git Commands

Git is a most widely used and powerful version control system for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. It is primarily used for source code management in software development, but it can be used to keep track of changes in any set of files.

Git was developed by Linus Torvalds in 2005 as a distributed open-source software version control software and of course, it is free to use. As a distributed revision control system it is aimed at speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.

While other version control systems e.g. CVS, SVN keeps most of their data like commit logs on a central server, every git repository on every computer is a full-fledged repository with a complete history and full version tracking abilities, independent of network access or a central server.

However, almost all IDEs support git out of the box and we do not require submitting the git commands manually but it is always good to understand these commands. Below is a list of some git commands to work efficiently with git.

Git Help

The most useful command in git is git help which provides us with all the help we require. If we type git help in the terminal, we will get:



Command git help -a will give us a complete list of git commands:

Available git commands in '/usr/local/git/libexec/git-core'
  add                     gc                      receive-pack
  add--interactive        get-tar-commit-id       reflog
  am                      grep                    remote
  annotate                gui                     remote-ext
  apply                   gui--askpass            remote-fd
  archimport              gui--askyesno           remote-ftp
  archive                 gui.tcl                 remote-ftps
  askpass                 hash-object             remote-http
  bisect                  help                    remote-https
  bisect--helper          http-backend            repack
  blame                   http-fetch              replace
  branch                  http-push               request-pull
  bundle                  imap-send               rerere
  cat-file                index-pack              reset
  check-attr              init                    rev-list
  check-ignore            init-db                 rev-parse
  check-mailmap           instaweb                revert
  check-ref-format        interpret-trailers      rm
  checkout                log                     send-email
  checkout-index          ls-files                send-pack
  cherry                  ls-remote               sh-i18n--envsubst
  cherry-pick             ls-tree                 shortlog
  citool                  mailinfo                show
  clean                   mailsplit               show-branch
  clone                   merge                   show-index
  column                  merge-base              show-ref
  commit                  merge-file              stage
  commit-tree             merge-index             stash
  config                  merge-octopus           status
  count-objects           merge-one-file          stripspace
  credential              merge-ours              submodule
  credential-manager      merge-recursive         submodule--helper
  credential-store        merge-resolve           subtree
  credential-wincred      merge-subtree           svn
  cvsexportcommit         merge-tree              symbolic-ref
  cvsimport               mergetool               tag
  daemon                  mktag                   unpack-file
  describe                mktree                  unpack-objects
  diff                    mv                      update
  diff-files              name-rev                update-git-for-windows
  diff-index              notes                   update-index
  diff-tree               p4                      update-ref
  difftool                pack-objects            update-server-info
  difftool--helper        pack-redundant          upload-archive
  fast-export             pack-refs               upload-pack
  fast-import             patch-id                var
  fetch                   prune                   verify-commit
  fetch-pack              prune-packed            verify-pack
  filter-branch           pull                    verify-tag
  fmt-merge-msg           push                    web--browse
  for-each-ref            quiltimport             whatchanged
  format-patch            read-tree               worktree
  fsck                    rebase                  write-tree
  fsck-objects            rebase--helper

And command git help -g will give us a list of git concepts which git think is good for us:

The common Git guides are:

   attributes   Defining attributes per path
   everyday     Everyday Git With 20 Commands Or So
   glossary     A Git glossary
   ignore       Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
   modules      Defining submodule properties
   revisions    Specifying revisions and ranges for Git
   tutorial     A tutorial introduction to Git (for version 1.5.1 or newer)
   workflows    An overview of recommended workflows with Git

We can use git help <command> or git help <concept> command to know more about a specific command or concept.

Git Configuration

Description	Git Command
List all configurations applied to the current repository in order (picked from bottom to top).	git config --list Or git config --global --list
Configure the author name to be used with your commits by replacing old entries.	git config --global --replace-all user.name "Sam Smith"
Configure the author email address to be used with your commits	git config --global user.email [email protected]
Will remove user credential details from the repository	git config --local credential.helper ""
List all currently configured remote repository URLs	git remote -v
If you haven't connected your local repository to a remote server, To add a remote server to a local repository	git remote add origin <repo_url>

Git Commit and Push

Description	Git Command
Create a file name README.md with Readme content content	echo "Readme content" >> README.md
List the files you've changed and those you still need to add or commit	git status
Add all or one file to the staging area	git add . OR git add folder/file_name
Remove all or one file from the staging area	git reset HEAD OR git reset HEAD folder/file_name
Commit changes to head with a message	git commit -m 'message'
Commit any files you've added with git add, and also commit any files you've changed since then	git commit -a
Send all commits from local repository to remote repository	git push
Do a git push and sets the default remote branch for the current local branch. So any future git pull command will attempt to bring in commits from the <remote-branch>into the current local branch	git push -u <remote-branch>
Send changes to the master branch of your remote repository	git push origin master
Push a specific branch to your remote repository	git push origin <branch_name>
Push all branches to your remote repository	git push --all origin

Git Checkout And Pull

Description	Git Command
To create a new local repository	git init
Clone a repository into a new directory	git clone repo_url
Clone a repository into a new directory and point to mentioned branch_name	git clone --branch branch_name repo_url
To create a working copy of a local repository	git clone /path/to/repository
Download objects and refs from a remote repository for the master branch	git fetch origin master
To merge a different branch into your active branch	git merge <branch_name>
Fetch and merge changes on the remote server to your working directory:	git pull
View all the merge conflicts, View the conflicts against the base file, Preview changes, before merging	git diff, git diff --base <filename>, git diff <sourcebranch> <targetbranch>

Git Branch

Description	Git Command
List all the branches in your repository, and also tell you what branch you're currently in	git branch
Switch from one branch to another	git checkout branch_name
Create a new branch and switch to it	git checkout -b branch_name
Create a new branch from the master branch and switch to it	git checkout -b branch_name master
Delete the feature branch from the local repository	git branch -d <branch_name>
Delete a branch on your remote repository	git push origin :<branch_name>

Git Cleaning

Description	Git Command
Fetch the latest history (objects & refs) from the remote server for the master branch	git fetch origin master
Clean the repository to the last push	git clean -x -d -f
Reset local repository and point your local master branch to latest history fetched from the remote server	git reset --hard origin/master
To bring all changes from a remote repository to the local repository	git pull origin master

Other Git commands

Description	Git Command
You can use tagging to mark a significant changeset, such as a release	git tag 1.0.0 <commitID>
Commit Id is the leading characters of the changeset ID, up to 10, but must be unique. Get the ID using	git log
Push all tags to the remote repository	git push --tags origin
If you mess up, you can replace the changes in your working tree with the last content in head: Changes already added to the index, as well as new files, will be kept	git checkout -- <filename>
Search the working directory for foo()	git grep "foo()"

I keep these commands as notes for my future reference and you can find more on this Github Repository and please feel free to provide your valuable feedback.