Useful and Important Git Commands

Posted By : Ranjan Mondal | 16-Dec-2018

Git is a version control system designed to handle everything from small and large projects with speed and efficiency.
It is free and open source distribution.

Git is very easy to learn. It has a very small footprint and lightning fast performance.
It outclasses other tools like Subversion, CVS with cheap local branching and multiple workflows.


Git is very useful in the following cases


Accidental deletion of the code, git can help to get back your code.
Accidental modification of the code or broke something, it helps you to revert it.
It lets you share and exchange your code with other developers very easily.
Need to know what recent changes you made to source code, git is a friend to you.
It lets you back up your source code to a remote server.

 

The installation process of git


Run following command inside the application folder, it will create .git folder inside the application.
Now you can start tracking version of your application.

 

git init

Clones repo from GitHub

git clone https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2   

Clones repo with folder name mylib

git clone https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2 mylib 

Shows status means untracked, modified and deleted files and the current branch

git status

s for short, display short descriptions

git status -s

 

output:
M README    		Modified file not staged yet.
MM Rakefile   		Modified and staged and then modified  
A lib/git.rb   		Staged (added)
?? LICENSE.txt  	Untracked File

For ignoring files to be added in Git. Create .gitignore file    
Add files and paths of files

cat .gitignore  
git add .gitignore
git commit -m "Adding gitignore"

To remove file from stag and working directory

git rm file_name
git commit -m "message-here"

If file is modified, then staged. and you want to remove
f for force removal

git rm -f file_name  
git commit -m "message-here"

Renaming file in git.

git mv file_from file_to  

This is similar to following commands

mv file_from file_to
git rm file_from
git add file_to

Give URL of the online repo, an origin is a nickname, u can give any name

git remote add origin https://github.com/username/myproject.git

To confirm above commands

git remote -v

Add particular file to git attention, create snapshots

git add Readme.txt

Add two files or more

git add Readme.txt contributing.md 

All files ends with c

git add *.c

Add all files

git add . 

Commit by adding message (create checks points)

git commit -m message here  

Create new branch and move to it.
To create branch

1. git branch <branch_name>  

To navigate another branchname

 git checkout <branch_name>  

or

2. git checkout -b <branch_name>

Create new branch with second last commit of master branch

3. git checkout -b <branch_name> master^   

Display Commits history recents two commits.

git log -2 

Recents two commits with modifications in those files

git log -p -2 

Recents two commands with files names and number of lines modified

git log -2 --stat 

Recents two commits in one lines

git log -2 --pretty=oneline

More options in --pretty

git log -2 --pretty=short 
git log -2 --pretty=full
git log -2 --pretty=fuller
 
git log --pretty=format:"%H %ae"

Option  Description of Output
%H  Commit hash
%h  Abbreviated commit hash
%T  Tree hash
%t  Abbreviated tree hash
%P  Parent hashes
%p  Abbreviated parent hashes
%an  Author name
%ae  Author email
%ad  Author-date (format respects the --date=option)
%ar  Author-date, relative
%cn  Committer name
%ce  Committer email
%cd  Committer date
%cr  Committer date, relative
%s  Subject
 
Shows nice ASCII graph

git log --pretty=format:"%h %s" --graph

Limit log output
 in weeks, months, years, days

git log --since=2.weeks  
git log --until=2.weeks
git log --pretty=oneline --since='5 minutes ago'
git log --pretty=oneline --until='5 minutes ago'
 
git log --pretty=oneline --author=<author_name>
git log --author=<author_name> -2
 
 
git log --oneline --decorate --graph --all

Shows commits of remote branch which are not in local branch

git log --no-merges <local_branch>..origin/<remote_branch>

cherry pick - add commits from one branch to another.
Move to branch where you add the commit

git checkout <branch_name> 
git cherry-pick d467740

Add more cherry picks in one go

git cherry-pick d467740 de906d4 

If cherry picks get halted, then resolve the conflicts, run your code
then run continue command and add more cherry picks. --continue adds modified files

git cherry-pick --continue 

For any resolved conflicts. 

git add <file_name>
git commit -m "message" 

After that successful cherry picks

git push origin <branch_name>

Abort cherry pick in middle of process

git cherry-pick --abort

To cherry pick merge instead of commit
and push the changes

git cherry-pick -m 1 <hash>   

If you have committed, and forgot to add few files and want to make same commit.

git add <forgotten_file>   
git commit --amend  

or

git commit --amend -m "modify last commit message"

Listing branches
List all branches with current branch

git branch   

List all branches with current branch and last commits

git branch -v 

List all remote branches

git branch -r 

To see all remote and local branches and which are out of date

git remote show origin 

List all branches which are merged to current branch

git branch --merged 

List all branches which are not merged to current branch

git branch --no-merged 

Delete branch
To delete allready merged branch

git branch -d <branch_name>  

To delete un-merged branch and lose their work.

git branch -D <branch_name>   

Diff commands
Identifies possible whitespace errors

git diff --check    

To see the difference between last commit and unstaged data (before add)

git diff 

To see the difference between the last commit and staged data (after add)       

git diff --staged 

Show modified contents in the specific file before the stage.

git diff file_name 

Undo changes or modification before stage(add)
In particular file

git checkout <file_name>   

For all changes in all files

git checkout .   

Undo changes or modification after stage(add) means unstage(un-add)
in particular file

git reset HEAD <file_name>   

For all changes in all files   

git reset --soft HEAD~    

Undo last commit and all changes, HEAD^ -> second last commit

git reset --hard HEAD^     

Apply in between merge and undo the merge 

git reset --hard HEAD  

If merge commits created and to undo merge. Here ORIG_HEAD stores previous head

git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD  

Head stores merge commit.

git reset --hard origin/<current_branch_name>
git reset --hard HEAD@{2} 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Author

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Ranjan Mondal

Ranjan is a bright Web App Developer, and has good knowledge of Core java, Spring and hibernate.

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