Working with git

Interacting with a remote repository

This page describes solution to typical needs with git. If you are new to git, please read any of the fine tutorials to learn about the concepts that git offers, and how one would typically work with git.

Later, if you get stuck, or if you maneuvered yourself into a corner, you can come back here to find solutions to particular problems. That is, this page is not organised by "how do I do thing that are natural for git", but rather "how do I map things I need to do onto actions that are natural for git".

This page is split into three parts:

• Interacting with a remote repository (pull, push, merge)
• Local commits
• Working (adding/removing files, undoing changes)

Check out a repository:

 git clone <remote-repo-url> <local-repo-name>
 git clone carpetgit@carpetcode.org:McLachlan McLachlan

Find out what changes were made to a remote repository since I last pulled:

 ??? (probably something with "git fetch")

Update from a repository, if there are no local uncommitted changes:

 git pull

??? How to merge? Shouldn't this rebase?

Update from a repository, if there are local changes:

Save all local changes:

 git stash

Then update as described above. Re-apply all local changes:

 git stash pop

If there are no conflicts, you are done. If there are conflicts, handle them, then:

 git stash drop

since "stash pop" doesn't pop the stash if there are conflicts. "git stash list" shows all stashes. It is not possible to look at the content of a stash (???).

Push to a repository:

Ensure all remote changes have been pulled (see above), then:

 git push

Create a branch containing the current snapshop of the local repository, including all uncommitted changes, and switch to this branch

??? should this maybe be split into two actions: creating a remote branch, and then switching to this branch locally?

List all branches

 git branch

??? This doesn't list new remote branches, does it? ??? How to find out whether there are accidental local branches without remote counterpart?

Find out on which branch I am:

 git branch

The branch marked with a star "*" is the current branch.

Switch to a branch, if there are no uncommitted changes

 git checkout <branch-name>

??? Does this require a better syntax so that branch names and directory names are not confused?

Committing

Commit a change:

 git add <list-of-files-to-commit>
 git commit

Modify a commit that hasn't propagated yet, keeping the working tree the same:

 ??? (could just undo the commit (see below), and then create a new one)

Undo a commit that hasn't propagated yet, keeping the working tree the same:

 ??? (probably some variation of "git reset" and "git checkout")

??? Note: Need to clear out the staging area as well

Revert a commit (i.e. create another commit) that may have propagated already, keeping all the changes as local modifications:

 ???

Revert a commit (i.e. create another commit), dropping all changes that it made:

 ??? (some variation of "git reset")

Making local changes

Revert an uncommitted change to a file:

 git checkout -- <file>

Add a file to the repository:

Create file locally

 git add <list-of-files-to-add>

Then commit.

Remove a file from the repository:

Delete file locally

 git rm <list-of-files-that-were-removed>

(Is there a way to let git determine automatically which files were removed?) Then commit.

Undo adding a file to the repository:

Delete file locally

 git reset HEAD <file>

Undo removing a file from the repository, recreating the file manually:

Create file locally

 git reset HEAD <file>

Undo removing a file from the repository, resurrecting the file in the repository:

 ??? (probably a combination of "checkout" and "reset")