Adding

Git has a staging area which is area between your working copy and repository. You can add files to the index using git add command. Git adds files with respect to the .gitignore file.

git add .  # adds all files
git add -u # adds deleted files
git add -A # shortcut for both previous steps

Aliases

Git allows us to create shortcuts for frequently used commands in form of aliases.

Adding aliases

git config --global alias.pl "pull origin master"
git config --global alias.ps "push -u origin master"
git config --global alias.st "status"
git config --global alias.sb "submodule"

Deleting aliases

git config --global --unset alias.name

Listing aliases

git config --global --get-regexp alias

Branches

A branch in Git is a pointer to a specific commit. The default branch name in Git is master.

Adding branches

git branch branch_name

This creates a new branch at the same commit as is your current branch.

Switching to a branch

git checkout branch_name

Renaming branches

git branch -m old_branch new_branch

Pushing new local branch to remote

git push origin branch_name

Pulling new remote branch

git checkout -b branch_name origin/branch_name

Deleting branches

git branch -d branch_name

Merging new branch into master

git checkout master
git merge new_branch

Listing branches

git branch    # local
git branch -r # remote
git branch -a # local and remote

Remotes

Gits lets you define a number of remote repositories to work with.

Adding remotes

git remote add alias_name user@host.com:repo_name.git

Deleting remotes

git remote rm alias_name

Listing remotes

git remote    # just aliases
git remote -v # aliases with urls

Submodules

Adding submodules

git submodule add user@host.com:repo.git path/to/submodule

Initing and updating submodules

# from the project root
git submodule init
git submodule update

Deleting submodules

First you need to delete submodule from the .gitmodules file located in your project root. Then delete submodule from your git config file located in .git folder of your project root. Then you need to run following command (note that there is no trailing slash):

git rm --cached path/to/submodule

After that you just need to commit changes and delete the untracked submodule data.

Editing submodule contents from your project

You can directly edit contents of your submodules from your project. After updating your submodules using submodule update command, your submodules are checked out, but not within a branch. So before making any changes, you need to be sure that your submodule is on specific branch. Now you can make the changes and then from the subproject root commit them.

Reverting changes

Commited but not pushed to remote

If you want to remove last commit but leave the files staged just use the –soft option for the git reset command. On the other hand, if you want to get rid of the changes to tracked files in the working tree use –hard option for that.

# HEAD~1 is shorthand to the first commit before HEAD
git reset --soft HEAD~1

Commited and pushed to remote

You cannot use git reset for this scenario, you want to use the git revert instead.

# this will create a new commit reverting all changes by the last one
git revert HEAD

Merging

Dry run

# it will not allow fast forward neither it will commit any changes
# it will leave updated files in your staging area
git merge --no-ff --no-commit master