2. Outline
I. Introduction to Git
A. What is Git?
B. Git workflow: Creating a new repo
C. HEAD
D. Basic Git commands
E. Concept of branches
F. Creating a branch/switching between branches
G. Merging branches and resolving conflicts
H. Concept of stashing
II. Introduction to GitHub
A. What is GitHub? Basic GitHub concepts
B. GitHub in practice: Distributed version control
C. Cloning a remote repo
D. Fetching/Pushing to a remote repo
E. Collaborating using Git and GitHub
3. What is a ‘version control system’?
• a way to manage files and directories
• track changes over time
• recall previous versions
• ‘source control’ is a subset of a VCS.
5. What is Git?
• created by Linus Torvalds, April 2005
• a command line version control program
• uses checksums to ensure data integrity
• cross-platform
• open source, free
• distributed version control
6. Distributed version control
• No central server
• Every developer is a client, the server and the repository
Source: http://bit.ly/1SH4E23
7. Git distributed version control
• no need to connect to central server
• can work without internet connection
• no single failure point
• developers can work independently and merge their work later
• every copy of a Git repository can serve either as the server or as a
client and has complete history
• Git tracks changes, not versions
• Bunch of little change sets floating around
8. What is a repository?
• “repo” = repository
• usually used to organize a single project
• repos can contain folders and files, images, videos,
spreadsheets, and data sets – anything your project needs
9. Git uses a three-tree architecture
Staging index
Working copy
Repository
checkout
add
commit
10. Before starting to use git
• Setup your name and email so others can know who committed
changes.
• git config - -global user.name ”name”
• git config - -global user.email ”email”
Note: set for all repositories on your computer
• git config - -local user.email ”email”
Note: can set differently for each repository
11. A simple Git workflow
1. Initialize a new project in a directory:
git init
2. Add a file using a text editor to the directory
3. Add every change that has been made to the directory:
git add <filename>.
4. Commit the change to the repo:
git commit –m “important message here”
12. After initializing a new git repo…
add
commit
Make changes to files
Add local changes
Commit changes with
message
Staging index
Working copy
Repository
13. Creating a new repository
• git init
• git add <filename>
• git commit –m “important message here”
14. Commit messages
• Tell what it does (present tense)
• Single line summary followed by blank space followed by more
complete description
• Keep lines to <= 72 characters
• Ticket or bug number helps
15. Commit Messages Structure
Short (50 chars or less) summary of changes
More detailed explanatory text, if necessary. Wrap it to about 72
characters or so. In some contexts, the first line is treated as the
subject of an email and the rest of the text as the body. The blank
line separating the summary from the body is critical (unless you omit
the body entirely); tools like rebase can get confused if you run the
two together.
Further paragraphs come after blank lines.
- Bullet points are okay, too
- Typically a hyphen or asterisk is used for the bullet, preceded by a
single space, with blank lines in between, but conventions vary here
Source:http://git-scm.com/book/ch5-2.html
16. Good and bad examples
Bad: “Typo fix”
Good: “Add missing / in CSS section”
Bad: “Fix syntax”
Good: “Fix miscellaneous PEP8 issues”
19. The HEAD pointer
• points to a specific commit in repo
• as new commits are made, the pointer changes
• HEAD always points to the “tip” of the currently c
21. Which files were changed and
where do they sit in the three tree?
• git status – allows one to see where files are in the three tree scheme
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
22. Committing and adding message
• git commit -a
• Allows one to add to staging index and commit at the same time
• Grabs everything in working directory
• Files not tracked or being deleted are not included
23. • git diff – compares changes to files between repo and working
directory
What changed in working directory?
Note: git diff --staged - compares staging index to repo
Note: git diff filename can be used as well
Line numbers in file
Removed
Added
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
24. Difference between commits
• git diff commit_1 commit_2
When using checksum of older commit, will show you all changes
compared to those in your working directory
25. Deleting files from the repo
• git rm filename.txt
• moves deleted file change to staging
area
• It is not enough to delete the file in
your working directory. You must
commit the change.
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
26. Moving (renaming) files
• git mv filename1.txt filename2.txt
Note: File file1.txt was committed to repo earlier.
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
27. • git init
• git status
• git log
• git add
• git commit
• git diff
• git rm
• git mv
Common workflow
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
28. What if I want to undo changes
made to working directory?
• git checkout something
(where “something” is a file or an entire branch)
• git checkout will grab the file from the repo removing
all changes since last commit
• Example: git checkout -- file1.txt
(“checkout file ‘file1.txt’ from the current branch”)
checkout
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
29. What if I want to undo changes
added to staging area?
• git reset HEAD filename.txt
reset
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
30. Obtain older versions
• git checkout SHA1 -- filename.txt
Note: Checking out older commits places them into the staging area
checkout
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
31. Branches in Git
• allows one to try new ideas
• If an idea doesn’t work, throw away the branch. Don’t have to undo
many changes to master branch
• If it does work, merge ideas into master branch.
• Note: There is only one working directory
32. Branching and merging example
HEAD
f30ab34ac298ca9
52ef3 S32d3
mN34i
HEAD
master
test_branch
merge
35. How do I create a new branch?
• git checkout -b new_branch_name
Note: At this point, both HEADs of the branches are pointing to the same
commit (that of master)
36. How do I switch branches?
• git checkout branch_name
At this point, one can switch between branches, making commits, etc. in either
branch, while the two stay separate from one another.
Note: In order to switch to another branch, your current working directory
must be clean (no conflicts, resulting in data loss).
38. How do I merge a branch?
• git merge branch_to_merge
From the branch into which you want to merge another branch….
Note: Always have a clean working directory when merging
39. “fast-forward” merge occurs when HEAD of master
branch is seen when looking back
“recursive” merge occurs by looking back and combining
ancestors to resolve merge
34ac298ca9
52ef3 S32d3
mN34i
f30ab34ac298ca9
52ef3 S32d3
mN34i
40. Merge conflicts
What if there are two changes to same line in two different commits?
apple
master new_feature
banana
file1.txt file1.txt
41. Resolving merge conflicts
Git will notate the conflict in the files!
Solutions:
1. Abort the merge using git merge –abort
2. Manually fix the conflict
43. Tips to reduce merge pain
• merge often
• keep commits small/focused
• bring changes occurring to master into your branch frequently
(“tracking”)
44. Renaming and deleting branches
• git branch –m/--move old_name new_name
• git branch –d branch_name
Note: Must not be in branch_name
Note: Must not have commits in branch_name unmerged in branch
from which you are deleting
• git branch –D branch_name
Note: If you are really sure that you want to delete branch with
commits
45. Fast context switching
• git stash
Allows you to save your work during work.
Using git stash will allow you to maintain the state of your current working
directory and saves it to an temporary index that you can reapply later.
Repo
Working
copy
Staging
index
add
commit
stash
Stashing
index
Note: Stashing is used for switching quickly between
branches when you have to work on multiple
different tasks. Don’t leave the code in stash
for a long period of time.
46. Stashing your changes
• git stash save message
Note: if you don’t use a message comment, git automatically creates it
from the last commit message. This can be confusing and lead to
errors.
• git stash list
Note: shows your list of stashes, similar to git log
47. Recovering your changes
• git stash pop index
Note: throws away the stash index after applying changes to working
directory
• git stash apply index
Note: leaves stash in index list, but applies changes to working
directory
48. Branching from stash
• git stash branch branch_name index
Note: If you plan on working on a new feature for a long time period,
create a branch from stashed changes
51. GitHub
• a platform to host code repositories
• http://github.com
• launched in 2007
• most popular Git host
• allows users to collaborate on projects from anywhere
• GitHub makes git social!
• Free to start (can pay for private repositories and additional
features)
54. Copying (cloning) files from remote
repo to local machine
• git clone URL <new_dir_name>
• HTTPS
• SSH
55. How do I link my local repo to a remote
repo?
• git remote add <alias> <URL>
Note: This just establishes a connection…no files are copied/moved
Note: Yes! You may have more than one remote linked to your local
directory!
Which remotes am I linked to?
• git remote -v
56. Pushing to a remote repo
• git push remote_name branch_name
57. Getting changes from a remote repo
• git fetch remote_repo_name
• Fetch in no way changes a your working dir or
any commits that you’ve made.
• git merge must be done to merge fetched changes
into local branch
• git pull remote_repo_name
• Fetch and merge changes to local branch and
working directory
58. Tagging
• git tag
• Git has the ability to tag specific points in history as being
important, such as releases versions
(v.1.0, 2.0, …)
59. Types of tags
Two types of tags:
• lightweight – a pointer to a specific comment – basically a SHA
stored in a file
git tag tag_name
• annotated – a full object stored in the Git database –
SHA, tagger name, email, date, message and
can be signed and verified with GNU Privacy Guard (GPG)
git tag –a tag_name –m “message”
61. Good resources
• Git from Git: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
• A number of easy-to-understand guides by the GitHub folks:
https://guides.github.com
• Try Github: https://try.github.io/
• Bitbucket, alternative code hosting: https://bitbucket.org/
Editor's Notes
One can log in in the morning and see what has been done and by who.
Cat HEAD file in .git dir to see where HEAD is currently pointing.
