git - the simple guide - no deep shit! http://rogerdudler.github.

io/git-guide/

just a simple guide for getting started with git. no deep shit ;)

Tweet 4,747

by Roger Dudler

credits to @tfnico, @fhd and Namics

this guide in deutsch, español, français, italiano, nederlands, português, русский, türkçe

, 日本語, 中文, 한국어 Vietnamese

please report issues on github

Download git for OSX

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git - the simple guide - no deep shit! http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/

Download git for Windows

Download git for Linux

create a new directory, open it and perform a

git init

to create a new git repository.

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create a working copy of a local repository by running the command

git clone /path/to/repository

when using a remote server, your command will be

git clone username@host:/path/to/repository

your local repository consists of three "trees" maintained by git. the first
one is your Working Directory which holds the actual files. the

second one is the Index which acts as a staging area and finally the

HEAD which points to the last commit you've made.

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You can propose changes (add it to the Index) using

git add <filename>

git add *

This is the first step in the basic git workflow. To actually commit these
changes use
git commit -m "Commit message"

Now the file is committed to the HEAD, but not in your remote

repository yet.

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Your changes are now in the HEAD of your local working copy. To send
those changes to your remote repository, execute
git push origin master

Change master to whatever branch you want to push your changes to.

If you have not cloned an existing repository and want to connect your

repository to a remote server, you need to add it with

git remote add origin <server>

Now you are able to push your changes to the selected remote server

Branches are used to develop features isolated from each other. The
master branch is the "default" branch when you create a repository. Use
other branches for development and merge them back to the master

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branch upon completion.

create a new branch named "feature_x" and switch to it using

git checkout -b feature_x

switch back to master

git checkout master

and delete the branch again

git branch -d feature_x

a branch is not available to others unless you push the branch to your
remote repository

git push origin <branch>

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to update your local repository to the newest commit, execute

git pull

in your working directory to fetch and merge remote changes.

to merge another branch into your active branch (e.g. master), use
git merge <branch>

in both cases git tries to auto-merge changes. Unfortunately, this is not

always possible and results in conflicts. You are responsible to merge

those conflicts manually by editing the files shown by git. After

changing, you need to mark them as merged with
git add <filename>

before merging changes, you can also preview them by using

git diff <source_branch> <target_branch>

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it's recommended to create tags for software releases. this is a known

concept, which also exists in SVN. You can create a new tag named 1.0.0
by executing
git tag 1.0.0 1b2e1d63ff

the 1b2e1d63ff stands for the first 10 characters of the commit id you

want to reference with your tag. You can get the commit id by looking at
the...

in its simplest form, you can study repository history using.. git log

You can add a lot of parameters to make the log look like what you want.
To see only the commits of a certain author:
git log --author=bob

To see a very compressed log where each commit is one line:

git log --pretty=oneline

Or maybe you want to see an ASCII art tree of all the branches,
decorated with the names of tags and branches:

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git log --graph --oneline --decorate --all

See only which files have changed:

git log --name-status

These are just a few of the possible parameters you can use. For more,

see git log --help

In case you did something wrong (which for sure never happens ;) you
can replace local changes using the command
git checkout -- <filename>

this replaces 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.

If you instead want to drop all your local changes and commits, fetch the
latest history from the server and point your local master branch at it
like this
git fetch origin

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git reset --hard origin/master

built-in git GUI

gitk

use colorful git output

git config color.ui true

show log on just one line per commit

git config format.pretty oneline

use interactive adding

git add -i

graphical clients

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GitX (L) (OSX, open source)

Tower (OSX)
Source Tree (OSX & Windows, free)
GitHub for Mac (OSX, free)
GitBox (OSX, App Store)

guides
Git Community Book
Pro Git
Think like a git
GitHub Help
A Visual Git Guide

get help
Git User Mailing List
#git on irc.freenode.net

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429 Comments

Jayant •

Awesome. Thanks!
• •

Schmidt •

Bookmarked!
• •

Sean Leary •

Awesome, thanks!!

One suggestion: In the "add and commit" section:

git commit -m "Commit message"

should read:

git commit -m "Commit message" <filename>

• •

Chris Wolf •

Thank you for this! So incredibly useful and helpful! Some other things I found
helpful too...

To push a local branch to a different remote branch:

git push origin new-and-improved-master:master

To delete a remote branch:

git push origin :the-branch-name
• •

donna •

Thank you for this! Its excellent and easy to understand! I am not a developer,
but a configuration manager role, and trying to establish some processes for
developers using git. Question on branching, if there is a release_1.0 branch, I
want to be the one to merge it to master when it is ready. I'm confused how I
would go about doing that merge. Can you tell me how to execute that merge? Is
it $git merge release_1.0 master ?? Thanks so much!
• •

Nico Christie •

Hi, maybe I'm not understanding something, but I'm having some problems with
branches. I'd like to have a branch for developing and local testing and merge
with main when tests are successful. I created a branch and can commit to it, but
I can't seem to find a way to fetch the files on another computer. A fetch will
succeed, but no files are updated locally. Any hints on this? Thank you very much
and congrats on a very simple introduction to git new users!
• •

Oleksandr Vasiliev •

Hi, Nico!
Are you checking out your new branch on another computer? To see if you
have really fetched the branch use *git branch*. If the branch is in the list,
just *git checkout <branchname>* to it.

Edit: You have to create local branch that tracks changes on remote

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