Useful Git Commands
For those looking to use the most popular repository storage site in software development, check out these commands that will get you started.
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.
Join For FreeGit is a most widely used and powerful version control system for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. It is primarily used for source code management in software development, but it can be used to keep track of changes in any set of files.
Git was developed by Linus Torvalds in 2005 as an distributed open source software version control software and of course it is free to use. As a distributed revision control system it is aimed at speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear work flows.
While other version control systems e.g. CVS, SVN keeps most of their data like commit logs on central server, every git repository on every computer is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full version tracking abilities, independent of network access or a central server.
However almost all IDEs support git out of the box and we do not require submit the git commands manually but it is always good to understand these commands. Below is a list of some git commands to work efficiently with git.
Git Help
The most useful command in git is git help which provides us all the help we require. If we type git help in terminal, we will get:
usage: git [--version] [--help] [-C <path>] [-c <name>=<value>]
[--exec-path[=<path>]] [--html-path] [--man-path] [--info-path]
[-p | --paginate | --no-pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--bare]
[--git-dir=<path>] [--work-tree=<path>] [--namespace=<name>]
<command> [<args>]
These are common Git commands used in various situations:
start a working area (see also: git help tutorial)
clone Clone a repository into a new directory
init Create an empty Git repository or reinitialize an existing one
work on the current change (see also: git help everyday)
add Add file contents to the index
mv Move or rename a file, a directory, or a symlink
reset Reset current HEAD to the specified state
rm Remove files from the working tree and from the index
examine the history and state (see also: git help revisions)
bisect Use binary search to find the commit that introduced a bug
grep Print lines matching a pattern
log Show commit logs
show Show various types of objects
status Show the working tree status
grow, mark and tweak your common history
branch List, create, or delete branches
checkout Switch branches or restore working tree files
commit Record changes to the repository
diff Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc
merge Join two or more development histories together
rebase Reapply commits on top of another base tip
tag Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG
collaborate (see also: git help workflows)
fetch Download objects and refs from another repository
pull Fetch from and integrate with another repository or a local branch
push Update remote refs along with associated objects
'git help -a' and 'git help -g' list available sub-commands and some concept guides.
See 'git help <command>' or 'git help <concept>' to read about a specific sub-command or concept.
Command git help -a will give us complete list of git commands:
Available git commands in '/usr/local/git/libexec/git-core'
add gc receive-pack
add--interactive get-tar-commit-id reflog
am grep remote
annotate gui remote-ext
apply gui--askpass remote-fd
archimport gui--askyesno remote-ftp
archive gui.tcl remote-ftps
askpass hash-object remote-http
bisect help remote-https
bisect--helper http-backend repack
blame http-fetch replace
branch http-push request-pull
bundle imap-send rerere
cat-file index-pack reset
check-attr init rev-list
check-ignore init-db rev-parse
check-mailmap instaweb revert
check-ref-format interpret-trailers rm
checkout log send-email
checkout-index ls-files send-pack
cherry ls-remote sh-i18n--envsubst
cherry-pick ls-tree shortlog
citool mailinfo show
clean mailsplit show-branch
clone merge show-index
column merge-base show-ref
commit merge-file stage
commit-tree merge-index stash
config merge-octopus status
count-objects merge-one-file stripspace
credential merge-ours submodule
credential-manager merge-recursive submodule--helper
credential-store merge-resolve subtree
credential-wincred merge-subtree svn
cvsexportcommit merge-tree symbolic-ref
cvsimport mergetool tag
daemon mktag unpack-file
describe mktree unpack-objects
diff mv update
diff-files name-rev update-git-for-windows
diff-index notes update-index
diff-tree p4 update-ref
difftool pack-objects update-server-info
difftool--helper pack-redundant upload-archive
fast-export pack-refs upload-pack
fast-import patch-id var
fetch prune verify-commit
fetch-pack prune-packed verify-pack
filter-branch pull verify-tag
fmt-merge-msg push web--browse
for-each-ref quiltimport whatchanged
format-patch read-tree worktree
fsck rebase write-tree
fsck-objects rebase--helper
And command git help -g will give us a list git concepts which git think is good for us:
The common Git guides are:
attributes Defining attributes per path
everyday Everyday Git With 20 Commands Or So
glossary A Git glossary
ignore Specifies intentionally untracked files to ignore
modules Defining submodule properties
revisions Specifying revisions and ranges for Git
tutorial A tutorial introduction to Git (for version 1.5.1 or newer)
workflows An overview of recommended workflows with Git
We can use git help <command> or git help <concept> command to know more about about a specific command or concept.
Git Configuration
| Description | Git Command |
|---|---|
| Configure the author name to be used with your commits. | git config --global user.name "Sam Smith" |
| Configure the author email address to be used with your commits | git config --global user.email sam@example.com |
| Will remove user credential details from the repository | git config --local credential.helper "" |
| List all currently configured remote repository URLs | git remote -v |
| If you haven't connected your local repository to a remote server, To add a remote server to a local repository | git remote add origin <repo_url> |
Git Commit and Push
| Description | Git Command |
|---|---|
Create a file name README.md with Readme content content |
echo "Readme content" >> README.md |
| List the files you've changed and those you still need to add or commit | git status |
| Add all or one file to staging | git add . OR git add file_name |
| Commit changes to head with message | git commit -m 'message' |
Commit any files you've added with git add, and also commit any files you've changed since then |
git commit -a |
| Send all commits from local repository to remote repository | git push |
Do a git push and sets the default remote branch for the current local branch. So any future git pull command will attempt to bring in commits from the <remote-branch>into the current local branch |
git push -u <remote-branch> |
| Send changes to the master branch of your remote repository | git push origin master |
| Push a specific branch to your remote repository | git push origin <branch_name> |
| Push all branches to your remote repository | git push --all origin |
Git Checkout And Pull
| Description | Git Command |
|---|---|
| To create a new local repository | git init |
| Clone a repository into a new directory | git clone repo_url |
Clone a repository into a new directory and point to mentioned branch_name |
git clone --branch branch_name repo_url |
| To create a working copy of a local repository | git clone /path/to/repository |
| Download objects and refs from remote repository for master branch | git fetch origin master |
| To merge a different branch into your active branch | git merge <branch_name> |
| Fetch and merge changes on the remote server to your working directory: | git pull |
| View all the merge conflicts, View the conflicts against the base file, Preview changes, before merging | git diff, git diff --base <filename>, git diff <sourcebranch> <targetbranch> |
Git Branch
| Description | Git Command |
|---|---|
| List all the branches in your repository, and also tell you what branch you're currently in | git branch |
| Switch from one branch to another | git checkout branch_name |
| Create a new branch and switch to it | git checkout -b branch_name |
| Create a new branch from master branch and switch to it | git checkout -b branch_name master |
| Delete the feature branch from local repository | git branch -d <branch_name> |
| Delete a branch on your remote repository | git push origin :<branch_name> |
Git Cleaning
| Description | Git Command |
|---|---|
| Fetch the latest history (objects & refs) from the remote server for master branch | git fetch origin master |
| Clean repository to initial stage | git clean -x -d -f |
| Reset local repository and point your local master branch to latest history fetched from remote server | git reset --hard origin/master |
| To bring all changes from remote repository to local repository | git pull origin master |
Other Git commands
| Description | Git Command |
|---|---|
| You can use tagging to mark a significant change set, such as a release | git tag 1.0.0 <commitID> |
| Commit Id is the leading characters of the change set ID, up to 10, but must be unique. Get the ID using | git log |
| Push all tags to remote repository | git push --tags origin |
| If you mess up, you can replace 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 | git checkout -- <filename> |
Search the working directory for foo() |
git grep "foo()" |
I keep these commands as notes for my future reference and you can find more on this Github Repository and please feel free to provide your valuable feedback.
Published at DZone with permission of Naresh Joshi, DZone MVB. See the original article here.
Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.
Comments