Chen Ee Heng

Part time coder, computer vision researcher, making machines see and decide what to do for me.

#TODO: INSERT A FIGURE

What is git?

  • It is an “open source version control system” [1] .
  • You can think of it as a record book that tracks when/who/what changes were made inside a repository.
  • It compares the binary files in the repository to find the changes.
  • changes include any file addition/modification/deletion.
  • A repository is the folder where git is initialized, with the folder .git .
  • changes in the repository are committed to create a new version of the repository with a unique commit ID.
  • You can think of a commit as an entry in the record book.
  • Once committed, you can always get an exact version of the repository at the time of the commit. Pretty cool huh?

So how do I use git?

  • Setup git [2]. The name and email are used to indicate who made the changes in the repository.
    git config --global user.name INSERT_NAME_HERE
    git config --global user.email INSERT_EMAIL_HERE
  • Initialize a folder as a repository with branch name main. It should create a .git folder.
    git init -b main
  • Check the status of the repository.
    git status
  • Add files for commit.
    git add .
    git add -u ← only add files that are previously added
  • Commit the added files. As mentioned above, commit is where changes are recorded.
    git commit -m "INSERT_COMMIT_MESSAGE"
    git commit ← opens an editor to write the commit message
  • Store the changes remotely
    git push
  • Get the remote changes
    git pull ← merge local changes with remote changes, may cause conflict
    git pull --rebase ← get the remote changes and apply local changes to it
  • Initialize a local repository with branch main and push to remote 
    git init  
git add .
git commit -m "INSERT_COMMIT_MESSAGE"
git branch -M main  # Only needed if -b flag not used in git init
git remote add origin git@github.com:USERNAME/REPO_NAME.git
git push -u origin main
  • List branches
    git branch
  • Create a new branch
    git branch BRANCH_NAME
  • Rename current branch to BRANCH_NAME
    git branch -M BRANCH_NAME
  • Switch branch
    git checkout BRANCH_NAME
  • Merge branch B into branch A
    git checkout BRANCH_A
    git merge BRANCH_B
  • Delete branch
    git branch -d BRANCH_NAME ← delete local branch
    git push origin --delete BRANCH_NAME ← delete remote branch
    git fetch -p ← sync changes

Is that all there is to git?

Of course not. There is an entire website [1] dedicated to it !!! But the info here is the bare basic to get you started with git. If something goes wrong, git usually tells you what went wrong and possible solutions to fix it.

References

[1] Official website: https://git-scm.com
[2] How to install git on Ubuntu22.04 from digitalocean:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-git-on-ubuntu-22-04
[3] Git pull commands from KIT: https://sdq.kastel.kit.edu/wiki/Git…