Git Tutorial

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Git Tutorial
Lars Vogel
Version 5.4
Copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Lars Vogel
02.04.2013
Revision History
Revision 0.1 - 5.4

13.09.2009 - 04.12.2013

by Lars Vogel

Lars
Vogel

bug fixes and improvements

Git Tutorial
This tutorial explains the usage of the distributed version control system Git via the command line.
The examples were done on Linux (Ubuntu) but should also work on other operating systems like
Microsoft Windows.

Table of Contents
1. Git
1.1. What is a version control system?
1.2. What is a distributed version control
system?
1.3. What is Git?
1.4. Local repository and operations
1.5. Remote repositories
1.6. Branching and merging
1.7. Working tree
1.8. How to add changes to your Git repository
1.9. Adding to the staging area
1.10. Committing to the repository
1.11. Committing and commit objects
2. Tools
3. Terminology
3.1. Important terms
3.2. File states in Git
4. Commit reference
4.1. Using caret and tilde
4.2. Commit ranges with the double dot
operator
4.3. Commit ranges with the triple dot operator
5. Installation
5.1. Ubuntu, Debian and derived systems
5.2. Fedora, Red Hat and derived systems
5.3. Other Linux systems
5.4. Windows
5.5. Mac OS
6. Git Setup
6.1. Global configuration file
6.2. User Configuration
6.3. Push configuration

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6.5. Color Highlighting

6.6. Setting the default editor
6.7. Setting the default merge tool
6.8. More settings
6.9. Query Git settings
7. Setup rules for ignoring files and directories
7.1. Creating a .gitignore file for your repository
7.2. Global (cross-repository) .gitignore settings
7.3. Local per-repository ignore rules
8. Tracking empty directories with .gitkeep
9. Getting started with Git
9.1. Target of this chapter
9.2. Create directory
9.3. Create Git repository
9.4. Create content
9.5. See the current status of your repository
9.6. Add files to the staging area
9.7. Commit to Git repository
10. Looking at the result
10.1. Results
10.2. Directory structure
11. Remove files and adjust the last commit
11.1. Remove files
11.2. Remove a file from the staging area
11.3. Correct the last commit with git amend
11.4. Remove files based on .gitignore changes
12. Remote repositories
12.1. What are remotes?
12.2. Bare repositories
12.3. Setting up a bare Git repository
12.4. Cloning and the remote called "origin"
12.5. Adding more remote repositories
12.6. Synchronizing with remote repositories
12.7. Show the existing remotes
13. Cloning remote repositories and push and pull
13.1. Clone your repository
13.2. Push changes to another repository
13.3. Pull changes
14. Online remote repositories
14.1. Cloning online repositories
14.2. Add more remote repositories
14.3. Rename remote repositories
14.4. Remote operations via http and a proxy
15. What are branches?
16. Commands to working with branches
16.1. List available branches
16.2. Create new branch
16.3. Checkout branch
16.4. Rename a branch
16.5. Delete a branch
16.6. Push changes of a branch to a remote
repository
17. Differences between branches
18. Tags in Git
18.1. What are tags?
18.2. Lightweight and annotated tags
19. Tagging in Git
19.1. List existing tags
19.2. Creating lightweight tags
19.3. Creating annotated tags
19.4. Signed tags
19.5. Checkout tags
19.6. Push tags

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19.8. Naming conventions for tags

20. Viewing changes in the working tree with git
status
20.1. Viewing the status of the working tree
with git status
20.2. Example
21. Analyzing the repository history with git log
21.1. Repository history with Git log
21.2. Helpful parameters for git log
21.3. View the change history of a file
21.4. Find out which commit deleted a file or
directory
22. Viewing changes with git diff and git show
22.1. See unstaged changes since the last
commit
22.2. See differences between stating area and
last commit
22.3. See the differences introduced by a
commit
22.4. See the difference between two commits
22.5. See the files changed by a commit
23. Analyzing line changes with git blame
24. git shortlog for release announcements
25. Stashing committed changes with git stash
25.1. The stash command
25.2. Using the Git stash command
26. Remove untracked files with git clean
26.1. Removing untracked files in the working
tree
26.2. Example
27. Revert uncommitted changes
27.1. Checkout version from the staging area
27.2. Checkout with staged changes
27.3. Remove staged changes for new files
27.4. Remove staged changes for previously
committed files
28. Moving the HEAD pointer with git reset
28.1. Use cases for git reset
28.2. Finding commits which you have reset
28.3. git reset and deleting all unstaged files
28.4. Using git reset to squash commits
29. Retrieving individual files
29.1. View file in different revision without
checkout
29.2. See which commit deleted a file
30. Checkout or revert commits
30.1. Checkout commits versions
30.2. Reverting a commit
31. Recovering lost commits
31.1. Detached HEAD
31.2. git reflog
31.3. Example
32. Remote and local tracking branches
32.1. Remote tracking branches
32.2. Delete a remote tracking branch in your
local repository
32.3. Delete a branch in a remote repository
32.4. Tracking branches
32.5. Setting up tracking branches
32.6. See the branch information for a remote
repository
33. Updating your remote tracking branches with git
fetch

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33.2. Fetch from all remote repositories

33.3. Compare remote tracking branch with
local branch
33.4. Rebase your local branch onto the remote
tracking branch
33.5. Fetch compared with pull
34. Merging
35. Command to merge two branches
36. Merging branches
36.1. Fast-forward merge
36.2. Merge commit
36.3. Specifying merge strategies and
parameters
37. Rebase
37.1. Rebasing branches
37.2. Interactive rebase to edit history
37.3. Good practice for rebase
38. Selecting individual commits with git cherry-pick
38.1. Applying a single commit
38.2. Using cherry-pick
39. Solving merge conflicts
39.1. What is a merge conflict
39.2. Example for solving a merge conflict
40. Define alias
40.1. Using an alias
40.2. Alias examples
41. Submodules - repositories inside other Git
repositories
41.1. Using submodules
41.2. Updating submodules
41.3. Tracking commits
41.4. Tracking branches with submodules
42. Error search with git bisect
42.1. Using git bisect
42.2. git bisect example
43. Rewriting commit history with git filter-branch
43.1. Using git filter-branch
43.2. filter-branch example
44. Create and apply patches
44.1. What is a patch?
44.2. Create and apply patches
44.3. Create a patch for a selected commit
45. Git commit and other hooks
45.1. Usage of Git hooks
45.2. Client and server side commit hooks
46. Line endings on different platforms
47. Migrating from SVN
48. Frequently asked questions
48.1. Can Git handle symlinks?
49. Git series
50. Get the Kindle edition
51. Support free vogella tutorials
51.1. Thank you
51.2. Questions and Discussion
52. Links and Literature

1. Git
1.1. What is a version control system?

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functionality to revert the collection of files to another version. Each version captures a snapshot of
the files at a certain point in time. The collection of files is usually source code for a programming
language but a typical version control system can put any type of file under version control.
The collection of files and their complete history are stored in a repository.
The process of creating different versions (snapshots) in the repository is depicted in the following
graphic. Please note that this picture fits primarily to Git, other version control systems like CVS don't
create snapshots but store file deltas.

These snapshots can be used to change your collection of files. You may, for example, revert the
collection of files to a state from 2 days ago. Or you may switch between versions for experimental
features.

1.2. What is a distributed version control system?

A distributed version control system does not necessarily have a central server which stores the data.
The user can copy an existing repository. This copying process is typically called cloning in a
distributed version control system and the resulting repository can be referred to as clone.
Typically there is a central server for keeping a repository but each cloned repository is a full copy of
this repository. The decision which of the copies is considered to be the central server repository is
pure convention and not tied to the capabilities of the distributed version control system itself.
Every clone contains the full history of the collection of files and a cloned repository has the same
functionality as the original repository.
Every repository can exchange versions of the files with other repositories by transporting these
changes. This is typically done via a repository running on a server which is, other than the local

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1.3. What is Git?

Git is a distributed version control system.
Git originates from the Linux kernel development and is used by many popular Open Source projects,
e.g. the Android or the Eclipse developer teams, as well as many commercial organizations.
The core of Git was originally written in the programming language C, but Git has also been
re-implemented in other languages, e.g. Java, Ruby and Python.

1.4. Local repository and operations

After cloning or creating a repository the user has a complete copy of the repository. The user
performs version control operations against this local repository, e.g. create new versions, revert
changes, etc.
You can configure your repository to be a bare or a non-bare repositories.
bare repositories are used on servers to share changes coming from different developers
non-bare repositories allow you to create new changes through modification of files and to
create new versions in the repository
If you want to delete a Git repository, you can simply delete the folder which contains the repository.

1.5. Remote repositories

Git allows the user to synchronize the local repository with other (remote) repositories.
Users with sufficient authorization can push changes from their local repository to remote
repositories. They can also fetch or pull changes from other repositories to their local Git repository.

1.6. Branching and merging

Git supports branching which means that you can work on different versions of your collection of
files. A branch separates these different versions and allows the user to switch between these version

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For example if you want to develop a new feature, you can create a branch and make the changes in
this branch without affecting the state of your files in another branch.
Branches in Git are local to the respository. A branch created in a local repository, which was cloned
from another repository, does not need to have a counterpart in the remote repository. Local
branches can be compared with other local branches and with remote tracking branches. A remote
tracking branch proxies the state of a branch in another remote repository.
Git supports that changes from different branches can be combined. This allows the developer, for
example, to work independently on a branch called production for bugfixes and another branch
called feature_123 for implementing a new feature. The developer can use Git commands to combine
the changes at a later point in time.
For example, the Linux kernel community used to share code corrections (patches) via mailing lists to
combine changes coming from different developers. Git is a system which allows developers to
automate such a process.

1.7. Working tree

The user works on a collection of files which may originate from a certain point in time of the
repository. The user may also create new files or change and delete existing ones. The current
collection of files is called the working tree.
A standard Git repository contains the working tree (single checkout of one version of the project)
and the full history of the repository. You can work in this working tree by modifying content and
committing the changes to the Git repository.

1.8. How to add changes to your Git repository

If you modify your working tree, e.g. by creating a new file or by changing an existing file, you need to
perform two steps in Git to persist the changes in the Git repository. You first add selected files to the
staging area and afterwards you commit the changes of the staging area to the Git repository.

1.9. Adding to the staging area

Note
The staging area term is currently preferred by the Git community over the
old index term. Both terms mean the same thing.

You need to mark changes in the working tree to be relevant for Git. This process is called staging or

to add changes to the staging area.

You add changes in the working tree to the staging area with the git add command. This command
stores a snapshot of the specified files in the staging area.
The git add command allows you to incrementally modify files, stage them, modify and stage them
again until you are satisfied with your changes.

1.10. Committing to the repository

After adding the selected files to the staging area, you can commit these files to permanently add
them to the Git repository. Committing creates a new persistent snapshot (called commit or commit

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The staging area keeps track of the snapshots of the files until the staged changes are committed.
For committing the staged changes you use the git commit command.
This process is depicted in the following graphic.

1.11. Committing and commit objects

If you commit changes to your Git repository, you create a new commit object in the Git repository.
This commit object is addressable via a SHA-1 checksum. This checksum is 40 bytes long and is a
secure hash of the content of the files, the content of the directories, the complete history of up to
the new commit, the committer and several other factors.
This means that Git is safe, you cannot manipulate a file in the Git repository without Git noticing that
SHA-1 checksum does not fit anymore to the content.
The commit object points to the individual files in this commit via a tree object. The files are stored in
the Git repository as blob objects and might be packed by Git for better performance and more
compact storage. Blobs are addressed via their SHA-1 hash.
Packing involves storing changes as deltas, compression and storage of many objects in a single pack
file. Pack files are accompanied by one or multiple index files which speedup access to individual
objects stored in these packs.
A commit object is depicted in the following picture.

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The above picture is simplified. Tree objects point to other tree objects and file blobs. Objects which
didn't change between commits are reused by multiple commits.

2. Tools
The original tooling for Git was based on the command line. These days there is a huge variety of
available Git tools.
You can use graphical tools, for example, the EGit Plugin for the Eclipse IDE. See GUI Clients at the
official git website for an overview.

3. Terminology
3.1. Important terms
The following table provides a summary of important Git terminology.
Table 1. Git Terminology
Term
Branches

Definition
A branch is a named pointer to a commit. Selecting a branch in Git terminology is called to
checkout a branch. If you are working in a certain branch, the creation of a new commit
advances this pointer to the newly created commit.
Each commit knows their parents (predecessors). Successors are retrieved by traversing the
commit graph starting from branches or other refs, symbolic reference (e.g. HEAD) or explicit
commit objects. This way a branch defines its own line of descendants in the overall version
graph formed by all commits in the repository.

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You can create a new branch from an existing one and change the code independently from
other branches. One of the branches is the default (typically named master). The default branch
is the one for which a local branch is automatically created when cloning the repository.
Commit

When you commit your changes into a repository this creates a new commit object in the Git
repository. This commit object uniquely identifies a new revision of the content of the repository.
This revision can be retrieved later, for example, if you want to see the source code of an older
version. Each commit object contains the author and the committer, thus making it possible to
identify who did the change. The author and committer might be different people. The author
did the change and the committer applied the change to the Git repository.

HEAD is a symbolic reference most often pointing to the currently checked out branch.

HEAD

Sometimes the HEAD points directly to a commit object, this is called detached HEAD mode. In
that state creation of a commit will not move any branch.
The first predecessor of HEAD can be addressed via HEAD~1, HEAD~2 and so on. If you switch
branches, the HEAD pointer moves to the last commit in the branch. If you checkout a specific
commit, the HEAD points to this commit.
Index

Index is an alternative term for the staging area.

Repository

A repository contains the history, the different versions over time and all different branches and
tags. In Git each copy of the repository is a complete repository. If the repository is not a bare
repository, it allows you to checkout revisions into your working tree and to capture changes by
creating new commits. Bare repositories are only changed by transporting changes from other
repositories.
This tutorial uses the term repository to talk about a non bare repository. If it talks about a bare
repository, this is explicitly mentioned.

Revision

Represents a version of the source code. Git implements revisions as commit objects (or short
commits). These are identified by an SHA-1 secure hash. SHA-1 ids are 160 bits long and are
represented in hexadecimal notation.

Staging
area

The staging area is the place to store changes in the working tree before the commit. The staging
area contains the set of the snapshots of changes in the working tree (change or new files)
relevant to create the next commit and stores their mode (file type, executable bit).

Tags

A tag points to a commit which uniquely identifies a version of the Git repository. With a tag, you
can have a named point to which you can always revert to. You can revert to any point in a Git
repository, but tags make it easier. The benefit of tags is to mark the repository for a specific
reason e.g. with a release.
Branches and tags are named pointers, the difference is that branches move when a new commit
is created while tags always point to the same commit.
Technically, a tag reference can also point to an annotated tag object.

URL

A URL in Git determines the location of the repository. Git distinguishes between fetchurl for
getting new data from other repositories and pushurl for pushing data to another repository.

Working
tree

The working tree contains the set of working files for the repository. You can modify the content
and commit the changes as new commits to the repository.

3.2. File states in Git

A file in the working tree of a Git repository can have different states. These states are the following:
untracked: the file is not tracked by the Git repository, this means it was neither staged, i.e.
added to the staging area nor committed

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staged: staged to be included in the next commit

dirty / modified: the file has changed but the change is not staged

4. Commit reference
4.1. Using caret and tilde
You can use ^ (caret) and ~ (tilde) to reference predecessor commits objects from other references.
Predecessor commits are sometimes also called parent commits. You can combine the ^ and ~
operators.
[reference]~1 describes the first predecessor of the commit object accessed via [reference].
[reference]~2 is the first predecessor of the first predecessor of the [reference] commit. [reference]~3
is the first predecessor of the first predecessor of the first predecessor of the [reference] commit, etc.
[reference]~ is an abbreviation for [reference]~1.
For example you can use the HEAD~1 or HEAD~ reference to access the first [reference] of the
commit to which the HEAD pointer currently points.
[reference]^1 also describes the first predecessor of the commit object accessed via [reference].
The difference is that [reference]^2 describes the second predecessor of a commit. A merge commit
has two predecessors.
[reference]^ is an abbreviation for [reference]^1.

4.2. Commit ranges with the double dot operator

You can also specify ranges of commits. This is useful for certain Git commands, for example, for
seeing the changes between a series of commits.
The double dot operator allows you to select all commits which are reachable from a commit c2 but
not from commit c1. The syntax for this is "c1..c2". A commit A is reachable from another commit B if
A is a direct or indirect predecessor of B.

Tip
Think of c1..c2 as all commits as of c1 (not including c1) until commit c2.

For example, you can ask Git to show all commits which happened between HEAD and HEAD~4.
git log HEAD~4..HEAD

This also works for branches. To list all commits which are in the "master" branch but not in the
"testing" branch use the following command.
git log testing..master

You can also list all commits which are in the "testing" but not in the "master" branch.

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4.3. Commit ranges with the triple dot operator

The triple dot operator allows you to select all commits which are reachable either from commit c1 or
commit c2 but not from both of them.
This is useful to show all commits in two branches which have not yet been combined.
# show all commits which
# can be reached by master or testing
# but not both
git log master...testing

5. Installation
5.1. Ubuntu, Debian and derived systems
On Ubuntu and similar systems you can install the Git command line tool via the following command:
sudo apt-get install git

5.2. Fedora, Red Hat and derived systems

On Fedora, Red Hat and similar systems you can install the Git command line tool via the following
command:
yum install git

5.3. Other Linux systems

To install Git on other Linux distributions please check the documentation of your distribution. The
following listing contains the commands for the most popular ones.
# Arch Linux
pacman -S git
# Gentoo
emerge -av git
# SUSE
zypper install git

5.4. Windows
A windows version of Git can be found on the msysgit Project site. The URL to this webpage is listed
below. This website also describes the installation process.
http://msysgit.github.io/

5.5. Mac OS
The easiest way to install Git on a Mac is via a graphical installer. This installer can be found under

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http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer

As this procedure is not an official Apple one, it may change from time to time. The easiest way to
find the current procedure is to Google for the "How to install Git on a Mac" search term.
Git is also installed by default with the Apple Developer Tools on Mac OS X.

6. Git Setup
6.1. Global configuration file
Git allows you to store global settings in the .gitconfig file located in the user home directory. Git
stores the committer and author of a change in each commit. This and additional information can be
stored in the global settings.
You setup these values with the git config command.
In each Git repository you can also configure the settings for this repository. Global configuration is
done if you include the --global flag, otherwise your configuration is specific for the current Git
repository.
You can also setup system wide configuration. Git stores theses values is in the /etc/gitconfig file,
which contains the configuration for every user and repository on the system. To set this up, ensure
you have sufficient rights, i.e. root rights, in your OS and use the --system option.
The following configures Git so that a certain user and email address is used, enable color coding and
tell Git to ignore certain files.

6.2. User Configuration

Configure your user and email for Git via the following command.
# configure the user which will be used by git
# Of course you should use your name
git config --global user.name "Example Surname"
# Same for the email address
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

6.3. Push configuration

The following command configure Git so that the git push command pushes only the active branch
(in case it is connected to a remote branch, i.e.configured as remote tracking branches) to your Git
remote repository. As of Git version 2.0 this is the default and therefore it is good practice to
configure this behavior.
# set default so that only the current branch is pushed
git config --global push.default simple
# alternatively configure Git to push all matching branches
# git config --global push.default matching

You learn about the push command in Section 13.2, Push changes to another repository.

6.4. Avoid merge commits for pulling

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divergent changes. This may not be desired and you can avoid this via the following setting.
# set default so that you avoid unnecessary commits
git config --global branch.autosetuprebase always

Note
This setting depends on the individual workflow. Some teams prefer to
create merge commits, but the author of this tutorial likes to avoid them.

6.5. Color Highlighting

The following commands enables color highlighting for Git in the console.
git config --global color.ui true
git config --global color.status auto
git config --global color.branch auto

6.6. Setting the default editor

By default Git uses the system default editor which is taken from the VISUAL or EDITOR environment
variables if set. You can configure a different one via the following setting.
# setup vim as default editor for Git (Linux)
git config --global core.editor vim

6.7. Setting the default merge tool

Git does not provide a default merge tool for integrating conflicting changes into your working tree.
You have to use third party visual merge tools like tortoisemerge, p4merge, kdiff3 etc. A Google
search for these tools help you to install them on your platform.
Once you have installed them you can set your selected tool as default merge tool with the following
command.
# setup kdiff3 as default merge tool (Linux)
git config --global merge.tool kdiff3
# to install it under Ubuntu use
sudo apt-get install kdiff3

6.8. More settings

All possible Git settings are described under the following link: git-config manual page

6.9. Query Git settings

To query your Git settings of the local repository, execute the following command:
git config --list

If you want to query the global settings you can use the following command.

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7. Setup rules for ignoring files and directories

7.1. Creating a .gitignore file for your repository
Git can be configured to ignore certain files and directories. This is configured in a .gitignore file.
This file can be in any directory and can contain patterns for files.
You can use certain wildcards in this file. * matches several characters. The ? parameter matches one
character. More patterns are possible and described under the following URL: gitignore manpage
For example, the following .gitignore file tells Git to ignore the bin and target directories and all
files ending with a ~.
# ignore all bin directories
# matches "bin" in any subfolder
bin/
# ignore all target directories
target/
# ignore all files ending with ~
*~

You can create the .gitignore file in the root directory of the working tree to make it specific for the
Git repository.

Note
Files that are committed to the Git repository are not automatically removed
if you add them to a .gitignore file. You can use the git rm -r --cached
[filename]

command to remove existing files from a Git repository.

Tip
The .gitignore file tells Git to ignore the specified files in Git commands.
You can still add ignored files to the staging area of the Git repository by
using the --force parameter, i.e. with the git add --force [filename]
command.
This is useful if you want to add, for example, auto-generated binaries, but
you need to have a fine control about the version which is added and want
to exclude them from the normal workflow.

7.2. Global (cross-repository) .gitignore settings

You can also setup a global .gitignore file valid for all Git repositories via the core.excludesfile
setting. The setup of this setting is demonstrated in the following code snippet.
# Create a ~/.gitignore in your user directory
ccdd ~/
ttoouucchh .gitignore

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eecchhoo ".metadata" >> .gitignore

eecchhoo "*~" >> .gitignore
eecchhoo "target/" >> .gitignore

# Configure Git to use this file

# as global .gitignore
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore

The local .gitignore file can be committed into the Git repository and therefore is visible to everyone
who clones the repository. The global .gitignore file is only locally visible.

7.3. Local per-repository ignore rules

You can also create local per-repository rules by editing the .git/info/exclude file in your repository.
These rules are not committed with the repository so they are not shared with others.
This allows you to exclude, for example, locally generated files.

8. Tracking empty directories with .gitkeep

Git ignores empty directories, i.e. it does not put them under version control.
If you want to track such a directory, it is a common practice to put a file called .gitkeep in the
directory. The file could be called anything; Git assigns no special significance to this name. As the
directory now contains a file, Git includes it into its version control mechanism.

Tip
One problem with this approach is that .gitkeep is unlikely to be ignored by
version control systems or build agents, resulting in .gitkeep being copied
to the output repository. One possible alternative is to create a .gitkeep file
in there, which has the same effect but will more likely be ignored by tools
that do build processing and filtering of SCM specific resources.

9. Getting started with Git

9.1. Target of this chapter
In this chapter you create a few files, create a local Git repository and commit your files into this
repository. The comments (marked with #) before the commands explain the specific actions.
Open a command shell for the operations.

9.2. Create directory

The following commands create an empty directory which you will use as Git repository.
# switch to home
ccdd ~/
# create a directory and switch into it
mmkkddiirr ~/repo01
ccdd repo01

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mmkkddiirr datafiles

9.3. Create Git repository

The following explanation is based on a non-bare repository. See Section 3, Terminology for the
difference between a bare repository and a non-bare repository with a working tree.
Every Git repository is stored in the .git folder of the directory in which the Git repository has been
created. This directory contains the complete history of the repository. The .git/config file contains
the configuration for the repository.
The following command creates a Git repository in the current directory.
# Initialize the Git repository
# for the current directory
git init

All files inside the repository folder excluding the .git folder are the working tree for a Git repository.

9.4. Create content

The following commands create some files with some content that will be placed under version
control.
# switch to your new repository
ccdd ~/repo01
# create another directory
ttoouucchh datafiles/data.txt
# create a few files with content
llss > test01
eecchhoo "bar" > test02
eecchhoo "foo" > test03

9.5. See the current status of your repository

The git status command shows the working tree status, i.e. which files have changed, which are
staged and which are not part of the staging area. It also shows which files have merge conflicts and
gives an indication what the user can do with these changes, e.g. add them to the staging area or
remove them, etc.
Run it via the following command.
git status

9.6. Add files to the staging area

Before committing change to a Git repository you need to mark the changes that should be
committed. This is done by adding the new and changed files to the staging area. This creates a
snapshot of the affected files.

Note
In case you change one of the files again before committing, you need to

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# add all files to the index of the

# Git repository
git add .

Afterwards run the git status command again to see the current status.

9.7. Commit to Git repository

After adding the files to the Git staging area, you can commit them to the Git repository. This creates
a new commit object with the staged changes in the Git repository and the HEAD reference points to
the new commit. The -m parameter allows you to specify the commit message. If you leave this
parameter out, your default editor is started and you can enter the message in the editor.
# commit your file to the local repository
git commit -m "Initial commit"

10. Looking at the result

10.1. Results
The Git operations you performed have created a local Git repository in the .git folder and added all
files to this repository via one commit. Run the git log command
# show the Git log for the change
git log

You see an output similar to the following.

commit e744d6b22afe12ce75cbd1b671b58d6703ab83f5
Author: Lars Vogel <[email protected]>
Date:
Mon Feb 25 11:48:50 2013 +0100
Initial commit

10.2. Directory structure

Your directory contains the Git repository as well as the Git working tree for your files. This directory
structure is depicted in the following screenshot.

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11. Remove files and adjust the last commit

11.1. Remove files
If you delete a file which is under version control, git add . does not record this file deletion.
You can use the git rm command to delete the file from your working tree and record the deletion of
the file in the staging area.
# Create a file and commit it
ttoouucchh nonsense2.txt
git add .
git commit -m "more nonsense"
# remove the file and record the deletion in Git
git rm nonsense2.txt
# commit the removal
git commit -m "Removes nonsense2.txt file"

Tip
Alternatively to the git rm command you can use the git commit command
with the -a flag or the -A flag in the git add command. This flag adds
changes of files known by the Git repository to the commit in case of the git
commit

command. In case of the git add command it adds all file changes

including deletions to the staging area.

For this test, commit a new file and remove it afterwards.
# create a file and put it under version control
ttoouucchh nonsense.txt
git add .
git commit -m "a new file has been created"
# remove the file
rrmm nonsense.txt
# show status, output listed below the command
git status
# on branch master
# Changes not staged for commit:
#
(use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)

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# deleted:
nonsense.txt
#
# no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
# try standard way of committing -> will NOT work
# output of the command listed below
git add .
git commit -m "file has NOT been removed"
# On branch master
# Changes not staged for commit:
#
(use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#
(use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
# deleted:
nonsense.txt
#
# no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

After validating that this command does not remove the file from the Git
repository you can use the -a parameter. Be aware that the -a adds other
changes, too.
# commit the remove with the -a flag
git commit -a -m "File nonsense.txt is now removed"
# alternatively you could add deleted files to the staging area via
# git add -A .
# git commit -m "File nonsense.txt is now removed"

11.2. Remove a file from the staging area

You can use the git reset [filename] command to remove a file from the staging area, which you
added with git add [filename]. Removing a file from the staging area, avoids that it included in the
next commit.
# create a file and add to index
ttoouucchh unwantedstaged.txt
git add unwantedstaged.txt
# remove it from the index
git reset unwantedstaged.txt
# to cleanup, delete it
rrmm unwantedstaged.txt

11.3. Correct the last commit with git amend

The git --amend command makes it possible to replace the last commit. This allows you to change
the last commit including the commit message.

Note
The old commit is still available until a clean-up job remove it. See
Section 31.2, git reflog for details.

Assume the last commit message was incorrect as it contained a typo. The following command
corrects this via the --amend parameter.
# assume you have something to commit

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git commit --amend -m "More changes - now correct"

You should use the git --amend command only for commits which have not been pushed to a public
branch of another Git repository. The git --amend command creates a new commit ID and people
may have based their work already on the existing commit. In this case they would need to migrate
their work based on the new commit.

11.4. Remove files based on .gitignore changes

Sometimes you change your .gitignore file. Git will stop tracking the new entries from this moment.
The last version is still in the Git repository.
If you want to remove the last version of the files from your Git repository, you need to do this
explicitly via the following command.
# Remove directory .metadata from git repo
git rm -r --cached .metadata
# Remove file test.txt from repo
git rm --cached tteesstt.txt

Note
This does not remove the file from the repository history. If the file should
also be removed from the history, have a look at git filter-branch which
allows you to rewrite the commit history. See Section 43.1, Using git
filter-branch for details.

12. Remote repositories

12.1. What are remotes?
Remotes are URLs in a Git repository to other remote repositories that are hosted on the Internet,
locally or in the network.
Such remotes can be used to synchronize the changes of several Git repositories. A local Git
repository can be connected to multiple remote repositories and you can synchronize your local
repository with them via Git operations.

Note
Think of remotes as shorter bookmarks for repositories. You can always
connect to a remote repository if you know its URL and if you have access to
it. Without remotes the user would have to type the URL for each and every
command which communicates with another repository.

It is possible that users connect their individual repositories directly, but a typically Git workflow
involves one or more remote repositories which are used to synchronize the individual repository.
Typically the remote repository which is used for synchronization is located on a server which is

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Tip
A remote repository can also be hosted in the local file system.

12.2. Bare repositories

A remote repository on a server typically does not require a working tree. A Git repository without a

working tree is called a bare repository. You can create such a repository with the --bare option. The
command to create a new empty bare remote repository is displayed below.
# create a bare repository
git init --bare

By convention the name of a bare repository should end with the .git extension.

12.3. Setting up a bare Git repository

In this section you create a bare Git repository. In order to simplify the following examples, the Git
repository is hosted locally in the filesystem and not on a server in the Internet.

Note
To create a bare Git repository in the Internet you would, for example,
connect to your server via the ssh protocol or you use some Git hosting
platform, e.g. Github.com.

Execute the following commands to create a bare repository based on your existing Git repository.
# switch to the first repository

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# create a new bare repository by cloning the first one

git clone --bare . ../remote-repository.git
# check the content of the git repo, it is similar
# to the .git directory in repo01
# files might be packed in the bare repository
llss ~/remote-repository.git

Tip
You can convert a normal Git repository into a bare repository by moving
the content of the .git folder into the root of the repository and removing
all others files from the working tree. Afterwards you need to update the Git
repository configuration with the git config core.bare true command. The
problem with this process is that it does not take into account potential
future internal changes of Git, hence cloning a repository with the --bare
option should be preferred.

12.4. Cloning and the remote called "origin"

If you clone a repository, Git implicitly creates a remote named origin by default. The origin remote
links back to the cloned repository.
If you create a Git repository from scratch with the git init command, the origin remote is not
created automatically.

12.5. Adding more remote repositories

You add more remotes to your repository with the git remote add command.
You created a new Git repository from scratch earlier. Use the following command to add a pointer to
your new bare repository using the origin name.
# Add ../remote-repository.git with the name origin
git remote add origin ../remote-repository.git

12.6. Synchronizing with remote repositories

You can synchronize your local Git repository with remote repositories. These commands are covered
in detail in later sections but the following command demonstrates how you can send changes to
your remote repository.
# do some changes
eecchhoo "I added a remote repo" > test02
# commit
git commit -a -m "This is a test for the new remote origin"
# to push use the command:
# git push [target]
# default for [target] is origin
git push origin

12.7. Show the existing remotes

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# show the details of the remote repo called origin

git remote show origin

To see the details of the remotes, e.g. the URL use the following command.
# show the existing defined remotes
git remote
# show details about the remotes
git remote -v

13. Cloning remote repositories and push and pull

13.1. Clone your repository
Clone a repository and checkout a working tree in a new directory via the following commands.
# Switch to home
ccdd ~
# Make new directory
mmkkddiirr repo02
# Switch to new directory
ccdd ~/repo02
# Clone
git clone ../remote-repository.git .

13.2. Push changes to another repository

The git push command allows you to send data to other repositories. By default it sends data from
your current branch to the same branch of the remote repository. See Section 16.6, Push changes
of a branch to a remote repository for details on pushing branches or Git push manpage for
general information.
Make some changes in your local repository and push them from your first repository to the remote
repository via the following commands.
# Make some changes in the first repository
ccdd ~/repo01
# Make some changes in the file
eecchhoo "Hello, hello. Turn your radio on" > test01
eecchhoo "Bye, bye. Turn your radio off" > test02
# Commit the changes, -a will commit changes for modified files
# but will not add automatically new files
git commit -a -m "Some changes"
# Push the changes
git push ../remote-repository.git

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By default you can only push to bare repositories (repositories without

working tree). Also you can only push a change to a remote repository which
results in a fast-forward merge. See Section 34, Merging to learn about
fast-forward merges.

13.3. Pull changes

The git pull command allows you to get the latest changes from another repository for the current
branch.
To test this in your example Git repositories, switch to your second repository, pull in the recent
changes in the remote repository, make some changes, push them to your remote repository via the
following commands.
# switch to second directory
ccdd ~/repo02
# pull in the latest changes of your remote repository
git pull
# make changes
eecchhoo "A change" > test01
# commit the changes
git commit -a -m "A change"
# push changes to remote repository
# origin is automatically created as we cloned original from this repository
git push origin

You can pull in the changes in your first example repository with the following commands.
# switch to the first repository and pull in the changes
ccdd ~/repo01
git pull ../remote-repository.git/

# check the changes

git status

Tip
The git pull command is actually a shortcut for git fetch followed by the
git merge

or git rebase command depending on your configuration. In

Section 6.4, Avoid merge commits for pulling you configured your Git
repository so that git pull is a fetch followed by a rebase. See Section 33.1,
Fetch for more information about the fetch command.

14. Online remote repositories

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Git supports several transport protocols to connect to other Git repositories; the native protocol for
Git is also called git.
The following command clones an existing repository using the Git protocol. The Git protocol uses the
port 9148 which might be blocked by firewalls.
# switch to a new directory
mmkkddiirr ~/online
ccdd ~/online
# clone online repository
git clone git://github.com/vogella/gitbook.git

If you have ssh access to a Git repository, you can also use the ssh protocol. The name preceding @ is
the user name used for the ssh connection.
# clone online repository
git clone sssshh://[email protected]/vogella/gitbook.git
# older syntax
git clone [email protected]:vogella/gitbook.git

Alternatively you could clone the same repository via the http protocol.
# The following will clone via HTTP
git clone http://[email protected]/vogella/gitbook.git

14.2. Add more remote repositories

As discussed earlier cloning repository creates a remote called origin pointing to the remote
repository which you cloned from.
You can push changes to this origin repository via git push as Git uses origin as default. Of course,
pushing to a remote repository requires write access to this repository.
You can add more remotes via the git remote add [name] [URL_to_Git_repo] command. For
example, if you cloned the repository from above via the Git protocol, you could add a new remote
with the name github_http for the http protocol via the following command.
# Add the https protocol
git remote add github_http https://[email protected]/vogella/gitbook.git

14.3. Rename remote repositories

To rename an existing remote repository use the git remote rename command. This is demonstrated
by the following listing.
# rename the existing remote repository from
# github_http to github_testing
git remote rename github_http github_testing

14.4. Remote operations via http and a proxy

It is possible to use the HTTP protocol to clone Git repositories. This is especially helpful if your
firewall blocks everything except http or https.

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example, clone a repository via http and a proxy. You can either set the proxy variable in general for
all applications or set it only for Git.
This example uses environment variables.
# Linux
eexxppoorrtt http_proxy=http://proxy:8080
eexxppoorrtt https_proxy=https://proxy:8443
# Windows
sseett http_proxy http://proxy:8080
sseett https_proxy http://proxy:8080
git clone http://dev.eclipse.org/git/org.eclipse.jface/org.eclipse.jface.snippets.git

Note
For secured SSL encrypted communication you should use the ssh or https
protocol in order to guarantee security.

This example uses the following Git config settings.

# set proxy for git globally
git config --global http.proxy http://proxy:8080
# to check the proxy settings
git config --get http.proxy
# just in case you need to you can also revoke the proxy settings
git config --global --uunnsseett http.proxy

Tip
Git is able to store different proxy configurations for different domains, see
core.gitProxy in Git config manpage .

15. What are branches?

Git allows you to create branches, i.e. named pointers to commits. You can work on different
branches independently from each other. The default branch is most often called master.
Git allows you to create branches very fast and cheap in terms of resource consumption. Git
encourages the usage of branches on a regular basis.
If you decide to work on a branch, you checkout this branch. This means that Git populates the

working tree with the content of the commit to which the branch points and moves the HEAD pointer
to the new branch. As explained in Section 3, Terminology HEAD is a symbolic reference most
often pointing to the currently checked out branch.

16. Commands to working with branches

16.1. List available branches
The git branch command lists all local branches. The currently active branch is marked with *.

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git branch

If you want to see all branches (including remote tracking branches), use the -a for the git branch
command. See Section 32.1, Remote tracking branches for information about remote tracking
branches.
# lists all branches including the remote branches
git branch -a

The -v option lists more information about the branches.

In order to list branches or tags in a remote repository use the git ls-remote command as
demonstrated in the following example.
# lists branches and tags in the
# remote repository called origin
git llss-remote origin

16.2. Create new branch

You can create a new branch via the git branch [newname] command. This command allows to
specify the starting point (commit id, tag, remote or local branch). If not specified the commit to
which the HEAD reference points is used to create the branch.
# Syntax: git branch <name> <hash>
# <hash> in the above is optional
git branch testing

16.3. Checkout branch

To start working in a branch you have to checkout the branch. If you checkout a branch, the HEAD
pointer moves to the last commit in this branch and the files in the working tree are set to the state
of this commit.
The following commands demonstrates how you switch to the branch called testing, perform some
changes in this branch and switch back to the branch called master.
# switch to your new branch
git checkout testing
# do some changes
eecchhoo "Cool new feature in this branch" > test01
git commit -a -m "new feature"
# switch to the master branch
git checkout master
# check that the content of
# the test01 file is the old one
ccaatt test01

To create a branch and to switch to it at the same time you can use the git checkout command with
the -b parameter.
# Create branch and switch to it
git checkout -b bugreport12
# Creates a new branch based on the master branch

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16.4. Rename a branch

Renaming a branch can be done with the following command.
# rename branch
git branch -m [old_name] [new_name]

16.5. Delete a branch

To delete a branch which is not needed anymore, you can use the following command.
# delete branch testing
git branch -d testing
# check if branch has been deleted
git branch

16.6. Push changes of a branch to a remote repository

You can push the changes in the current active branch to a remote repository by specifying the target
branch. This creates the target branch in the remote repository if it does not yet exist.
# push current branch to a branch called "testing" to remote repository
git push origin testing
# switch to the testing branch
git checkout testing
# some changes
eecchhoo "News for you" > test01
git commit -a -m "new feature in branch"
# push all including branch
git push

This way you can decide which branches you want to push to other repositories and which should be
local branches. You learn more about branches and remote repositories in Section 32.1, Remote
tracking branches.

17. Differences between branches

To see the difference between two branches you can use the following command.
# shows the differences between
# current head of master and your_branch
git diff master your_branch

You can also use commmit ranges as described in Section 4.2, Commit ranges with the double
dot operator and Section 4.3, Commit ranges with the triple dot operator. For example, if you
compare a branch called your_branch with the master branch the following command shows the
changes in your_branch and master since these branches diverged.
# shows the differences in your
# branch based on the common
# ancestor for both branches

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See Section 22, Viewing changes with git diff and git show for more examples of the git diff
command.

18. Tags in Git

18.1. What are tags?
Git has the option to tag a commit in the repository history so that you find it easier at a later point in
time. Most commonly, this is used to tag a certain version which has been released.
If you tag a commit, you create an annotated or lightweight tag.

18.2. Lightweight and annotated tags

Git supports two different types of tags, lightweight and annotated tags.
A lightweight tag is a pointer to a commit, without any additional information about the tag. An

annotated tag contains additional information about the tag, e.g. the name and email of the person
who created the tag, a tagging message and the date of the tagging. Annotated tags can also be
signed and verified with GNU Privacy Guard (GPG).

19. Tagging in Git

19.1. List existing tags
You can list the available tags via the following command:
git tag

19.2. Creating lightweight tags

To create a lightweight tag don't use the -m, -a or -s option. Lightweight tags are often used for build
tags which do not need additional information other than the build number or the timestamp.
# create lightweight tag
git tag 1.7.1
# See the tag
git show 1.7.1

19.3. Creating annotated tags

You can create a new annotated tag via the git tag -a command. An annotated tag can also be
created using the -m parameter, which is used to specify the description of the tag. The following
command tags the current active HEAD.
# create tag
git tag 1.6.1 -m 'Release 1.6.1'
# show the tag
git show 1.6.1

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git tag 1.5.1 -m 'version 1.5' [commit id]

19.4. Signed tags

You can use the option -s to create a signed tag. These tags are signed with GNU Privacy Guard (GPG)
and can also be verified with GPG. For details on this please see the following URL: Git tag manpage
.

19.5. Checkout tags

If you want to use the code associated with the tag, use:
git checkout <tag_name>

Warning
If you checkout a tag, you are in the detached head mode and commits
created in this mode are harder to find after you checkout a branch
again. See Section 31.1, Detached HEAD for details.

19.6. Push tags

By default the git push command does not transfer tags to remote repositories. You explicitly have to
push the tag with the following command.
# push a tag or branch called tagname
git push origin [tagname]
# to explicitly push a tag and not a branch
git push origin tag <tagname>

19.7. Delete tags

You can delete tags with the -d parameter. This deletes the tag from your local repository. By default
Git does not push tag deletions to a remote repository, you have to trigger that explicitly.
The following commands demonstrate how to push a tag deletion.
# delete tag locally
git tag -d 1.7.0
# delete tag in remote repository
# called origin
git push origin :refs/tags/1.7.0

19.8. Naming conventions for tags

Tags are frequently used to tag the state of a release of the Git repository. In this case they are
typically called release tags.
Convention is that release tags are labeled based on the [major].[minor].[patch] naming scheme, for

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The idea is that the patch version is incremented if (only) backwards compatible bug fixes are
introduced, the minor version is incremented if new, backwards compatible functionality is
introduced to the public API and the major version is incremented if any backwards incompatible
changes are introduced to the public API.
For the detailed discussion on naming conventions please see the following URL: Semantic
versioning.

20. Viewing changes in the working tree with git

status
20.1. Viewing the status of the working tree with git status
The git status command shows the status of the working tree, i.e. which files have changed, which
are staged and which are not part of the index. It also shows which files have merge conflicts and
gives an indication what the user can do with these changes, e.g. add them to the staging area or
remove them, etc.

20.2. Example
The following commands create some changes in your Git repository.
# make some changesm, assumes that the test01
# and test02 files exists
# and have been committed in the past
eecchhoo "This is a new change to the file" > test01
eecchhoo "and this is another new change" > test02
# create a new file
llss > newfileanalyzis.txt

The git status command show the current status of your repository and suggest possible actions.
# see the current status of your repository
# (which files are changed / new / deleted)
git status

The output of the command looks like the following.

# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
#
(use "git push" to publish your local commits)
#
# Changes not staged for commit:
#
(use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#
(use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
# modified:
test01
# modified:
test02
#
# Untracked files:
#
(use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
# newfileanalyzis.txt
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

21. Analyzing the repository history with git log

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The git log commands shows the history of your repository in the current branch, i.e. the list of
commits.
# show the history of commits in the current branch
git log

21.2. Helpful parameters for git log

The oneline parameter fits the output of the git log command in one line.
If you use the abbrev-commit parameter, the git log command uses shorter versions of the SHA-1
identifier for a commit object but keeps the SHA-1 unique.
The graph parameter draws a text-based graphical representation of the branches and the merge
history of the Git repository.
# uses shortend but unique SHA-1 values
# for the commit objects
git log --abbrev-commit
# show the history of commits in one line
# with a shortened version of the commit id
# --online is a shorthand for "--pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit"
git log --oneline
# show the history as graph including branches
git log --graph --oneline

For more options on the git log command see the Git log manpage.

21.3. View the change history of a file

To see changes in a file you can use the -p option in the git log command.
# git log filename shows the commits for this file
git log [file path]
# Use -p to see the diffs of each commit
git log -p filename
# --follow shows the entire history
# including renames
git log --follow -p file

21.4. Find out which commit deleted a file or directory

To see which commit deleted a file you can use the following command.
# see the changes of a file, works even
# if the file was deleted
git log -- [file path]
# limit the output of Git log to the
# last commit, i.e. the commit which delete the file
# -1 to see only the last commit
# use 2 to see the last 2 commits etc
git log -1 -- [file path]
# include stat parameter to see

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git log -1 --stat -- [file path]

Note
The double hyphens (--) in Git separate flags from non-flags (usually
filenames).

22. Viewing changes with git diff and git show

22.1. See unstaged changes since the last commit
The git diff command allows the user to see the changes made. In order to test this, make some
changes to a file and check what the git diff command shows to you. Afterwards commit the
changes to the repository.
# make some changes to the file
eecchhoo "This is a change" > test01
eecchhoo "and this is another change" > test02
# check the changes via the diff command
git diff
# optional you can also specify a path to filter the displayed changes
# path can be a file or directory
git diff [path]

22.2. See differences between stating area and last commit

To see which changes you have staged, i.e. you are going to commit with the next commit, use the
following command.
# make some changes to the file
git diff --cached

22.3. See the differences introduced by a commit

To see the changes introduced by a commit use the following command.
git show <commit_id>

22.4. See the difference between two commits

To see the differences introduced between two commits you use the git diff command specifying
the commits. For example, the following command shows the differences introduced in the last
commit.
git diff HEAD~1 HEAD

22.5. See the files changed by a commit

To see the files which have been changed in a commit use the git diff-tree command. The

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git diff-tree --name-only -r <commit_id>

23. Analyzing line changes with git blame

The git blame command allows you to see which commit and author modified a file on a per line
base.
# git blame shows the author and commit per
# line of a file
git blame [filename]
# the -L option allows to limit the selection
# for example by line number
# only show line 1 and 2 in git blame
git blame -L 1,2 [filename]

24. git shortlog for release announcements

The git shortlog command summarizes the git log output, it groups all commits by author and
includes the first line of the commit message.
The -s option suppresses the commit message and provides a commit count. The -n option sorts the
output based on the number of commits by author.
# gives a summary of the changes by author
git shortlog
# compressed summary
git shortlog -sn

25. Stashing committed changes with git stash

25.1. The stash command
Git provides the git stash command which allows you to record the current state of the working
directory and the staging area and go back to the last committed revision.
This allows you to pull in the latest changes or to develop an urgent fix. Afterwards you can restore
the stashed changes, which will reapply the changes to the current version of the source code.
In general using the stash command should be the exception in using Git. Typically you would create
new branches for new features and switch between branches. You can also commit frequently in your
local Git repository and use interactive rebase to combine these commits later before pushing them
to another Git repository.

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You can avoid using the git stash command. In this case you commit the
changes you want to put aside and use the git commit --amend command to
change the commit later. If you use the approach of creating a commit, you
typically put a marker in the commit message to mark it as a draft, e.g.
"[DRAFT] implement feature x".

25.2. Using the Git stash command

25.2.1. Git stash example
The following commands will save a stash and reapply them after some changes.
# Create a stash with uncommitted changes
git stash
# TODO do changes to the source, e.g. by pulling
# new changes from a remote repo
# Afterwards reapply the stashed changes
# and delete the stash from the list of stashes
git stash pop

It is also possible to keep a list of stashes.

# create a stash with uncommitted changes
git stash save
# see the list
git stash list
# Result might
stash@{0}: WIP
stash@{1}: WIP
stash@{2}: WIP

of available stashes
be
on
on
on

something like:
master: 273e4a0 Resize issue in Dialog
master: 273e4b0 Silly typo in Classname
master: 273e4c0 Silly typo in Javadoc

# you can use the ID to apply a stash

git stash apply stash@{0}
# Or apply the latest stash and delete it afterwards
git stash pop
# also you can remove a stashed change
# without applying it
git stash drop stash@{0}
# or delete all stashes
git stash clear

25.2.2. Create branch from stash

You can also create a branch for your stash if you want to continue to work on the stashed changes in
a branch. This can be done with the following command.
# create a new branch from your stack and
# switch to it
git stash branch newbranchforstash

26. Remove untracked files with git clean

26.1. Removing untracked files in the working tree

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26.2. Example
The following commands demonstrates the usage of the git clean command.
# Create a new file with content
eecchhoo "this is trash to be deleted" > test04
# Make a dry-run to see what would happen
# -n is the same as --dry-run
git clean -n
# delete, -f is required if
# variable clean.requireForce is not set to false
git clean -f
# use -d flag to delete new directories
# use -x to delete hidden files, e.g. ".example"
git clean -fdx

27. Revert uncommitted changes

27.1. Checkout version from the staging area
Changes in the working tree which are unstaged can be undone with git checkout command. This
command resets the file in the working tree to the last staged or committed version.
# delete a file
rrmm test01
# revert the deletion
git checkout -- test01
# note git checkout test01 also works but using
# two - ensures that Git understands that test01
# is a path and not a parameter
# change a file
eecchhoo "override" > test01
# restore the file
git checkout -- test01

For example, you can restore a directory called data with the following command.
git checkout -- data

27.2. Checkout with staged changes

If you want to undo a staged but uncommitted change, you can still use the git checkout command if
you specify a commit pointer to use.
The following demonstrates the usage of this to restore a delete directory.
# assuming you deleted a tracked directory
# and staged the changes
# restore the working tree and reset the staging area
git checkout HEAD -- your_dir_to_restore

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tree and to also remove the staged changes.

Contact us

27.3. Remove staged changes for new files

If you added a new file to the staging area but do not want to commit the file, you can remove it from
the staging area via the git reset file command.
# create a file and
# accidently add it to the index
ttoouucchh incorrect.txt
git add .
# remove it from the index
git reset incorrect.txt
# to clean up, delete the file
# not neccessary, maybe you want to add it later to the index
rrmm incorrect.txt

Note
To learn more about the git reset command see Section 28.1, Use cases
for git reset.

27.4. Remove staged changes for previously committed files

If you have added the changes of a file to the staging area, you can also revert the changes in the
staging area and checkout the file from the index.
# some nonsense change
eecchhoo "change which should be removed later" > test01
# add the file to the staging area
git add test01
# restore the file in the staging area
git reset HEAD test01
# get the version from the staging area
# into the working tree
git checkout test01

28. Moving the HEAD pointer with git reset

28.1. Use cases for git reset
28.1.1. Moving the HEAD pointer
The git reset command allows you to set the current HEAD to a specified state, e.g. commit. This
way you can continue your work from another commit.
Depending on the specified parameters the git reset command performs the following:
1.

If you specify the --soft parameter, the git reset command moves only the HEAD pointer.

2.

If you specify the --mixed parameter (also the default), the git reset command moves the
HEAD pointer and resets the staging area to the new HEAD.

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resets the staging area and the working tree to the new HEAD.

Via parameters you can define if the staging area and the working tree is updated. As a reminder, the
working tree contains the files and the staging area contains the changes which are marked to be
included in the next commit. These parameters are listed in the following table.
Table 2. git reset options

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Reset

HEAD

Working tree

Staging area

soft

Yes

No

No

mixed (default)

Yes

No

Yes

hard

Yes

Yes

Yes

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The git reset command does not remove untracked files. Use the git clean
command for this.

28.1.2. Not moving the HEAD pointer with git reset

If you specify a path for the git reset command, Git does not move the HEAD pointer but only updates
the staging area or also the working tree depending on your specified option.
See Section 27.3, Remove staged changes for new files and Section 27.4, Remove staged
changes for previously committed files for examples.

28.2. Finding commits which you have reset

The commits which were above the commit to which you resetted, can be reached via the git reflog
command. See Section 31, Recovering lost commits.

28.3. git reset and deleting all unstaged files

The git reset --hard command makes the working tree exactly match HEAD but it does not delete
untracked files in your working tree. If you want to delete them also, you need to use the git clean
-f

command in addition.

# removes staged and working tree changes

# of committed files
git reset --hard
# the above does not remove untracked files therefore
# the next command is needed
# removes new files which are still untracked
git clean -f -d

28.4. Using git reset to squash commits

As a soft reset does not remove your change to your files and index, you can use the git reset
--soft

command to squash several commits into one commit.

As the staging area is not changed, you have it after the soft reset in the desired state for your new
commit, i.e. it has all the changes from the commits that you removed with the reset.
# squashes the last two commits
git reset --soft HEAD~1 && git commit -m "new commit message"

The interactive rebase adds more flexibility to squashing commits and allows to use the existing
commit messages. See Section 37.2, Interactive rebase to edit history for details.

29. Retrieving individual files

29.1. View file in different revision without checkout
The git show command allows to see and retrieve files from branches, commits and tags. It allows to
see the status of these files in the selected branch, commit or tag without checking them out into

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The following commands demonstrate that. You can also make a copy of the file.
# [reference] can be a branch, tag, HEAD or commit ID
# [filename] is the filename including path
git show [reference]:[filename]

# To make a copy to copiedfile.txt

git show [reference]:[filename] > copiedfile.txt

29.2. See which commit deleted a file

You can use the -- option in git log to see the commit history for a file, even if you have deleted the
file.
# see the changes of a file, works even
# if the file was deleted
git log -- [file path]
# limit the output of Git log to the
# last commit, i.e. the commit which delete the file
# -1 to see only the last commit
# use 2 to see the last 2 commits etc
git log -1 -- [file path]
# include stat parameter to see
# some statics, e.g. how many files were
# deleted
git log -1 --stat -- [file path]

30. Checkout or revert commits

30.1. Checkout commits versions
You can check out older revisions of your file via the commit ID. The commit ID is shown if you enter
the git log command.
The following command would show the log.
# command which generates the output
git log

The following listing shows an example output of a Git log command.

commit 046474a52e0ba1f1435ad285eae0d8ef19d529bf
Author: Lars Vogel <[email protected]>
Date:
Wed Jun 5 12:13:04 2013 +0200
Bug 409373 - Updates version number of e4 tools
Repairs the build
commit 2645d7eef0e24195fc407137200fe7e1795ecf49
Author: Lars Vogel <[email protected]>
Date:
Wed Jun 5 12:00:53 2013 +0200
Bug 409373 - Updates version number of e4 CSS spy features

To checkout a specific commit you can use the following command.

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git checkout [commit_id]

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# based on the example output this could be

git checkout 046474a52e0ba1f1435ad285eae0d8ef19d529bf

Warning
If you checkout a commit, you are in the detached head mode and
commits in this mode are harder to find after you checkout another
branch. Before committing it is good practice to create a new branch to
leave the detached head mode. See Section 31.1, Detached HEAD for
details.

30.2. Reverting a commit

You can revert commits via the git revert command. git revert will revert the changes of a commit
and record a new commit which documents that the other commit was reverted.
# Revert a commit
git revert commit_id

31. Recovering lost commits

31.1. Detached HEAD
If you checkout a commit or a tag, you are in the so-called detached HEAD mode . If you commit
changes in this mode, you have no branch which points to this commit. After you checkout a branch
you cannot see the commit you did in detached head mode in the git log command.
To find such commits you can use the git reflog command.

31.2. git reflog

Reflog is a mechanism to record the movements of the HEAD pointer and the branches. HEAD is a
pointer to the currently selected commit object.
The Git reflog command gives a history of the complete changes of the HEAD pointer.
git reflog
# Output
# ... snip ...
1f1a73a HEAD@{2}: commit: More chaanges - typo in the commit message
45ca204 HEAD@{3}: commit: These are new changes
cf616d4 HEAD@{4}: commit (initial): Initial commit

The git reflog command also list commits which you have removed.

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There are multiple reflogs: one per branch and one for HEAD. For branches
use the git reflog [branch] command and for HEAD use the git reflog or
the git reflog HEAD command.

31.3. Example
The following example shows how you can use git reflog to reset the current local branch to a commit
which isn't reachable from the git log anymore.
# Assume the ID for the second commit is
# 45ca2045be3aeda054c5418ec3c4ce63b5f269f7
# Resets the head for your tree to the second commit
git reset --hard 45ca2045be3aeda054c5418ec3c4ce63b5f269f7
# See the log
git log
# Output shows the history until the 45ca2045be commit
# See all the history including the deletion
git reflog
# <Output>
cf616d4 HEAD@{1}:
# ...snip....
1f1a73a HEAD@{2}:
45ca204 HEAD@{3}:
cf616d4 HEAD@{4}:

reset: moving to 45ca2045be3aeda054c5418ec3c4ce63b5f269f7

commit: More chaanges - typo in the commit message
commit: These are new changes
commit (initial): Initial commit

git reset --hard 1f1a73a

32. Remote and local tracking branches

32.1. Remote tracking branches
Your local Git repository contains references to the state of the branches on the remote repositories
to which it is connected. These local references are called remote tracking branches.
You can see your remote tracking branches with the following command.
# list all remote branches
git branch -r

To update remote tracking branches without changing local branches you use the git fetch
command which is covered in Section 33, Updating your remote tracking branches with git
fetch.

32.2. Delete a remote tracking branch in your local repository

It is also safe to delete a remote branch in your local Git repository. You can use the following
command for that.
# delete remote branch from origin
git branch -d -r origin/[remote_branch]

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32.3. Delete a branch in a remote repository

To delete the branch in a remote repository use the following command.
# delete branch in a remote repository
git push [remote] :branch]

Alternatively you can also use the following command.

# delete branch in a remote repository
git push [remote] --delete [branch]

For example if you want to delete the branch called testbranch in the remote repository called origin
you can use the following command.
git push origin :testbranch

Note
Note you can also specify the remote repository's URL. So the following
command also works.
git push sssshh://[URL_to_repo] :testbranch

32.4. Tracking branches

Branches can track another branch. This is called to have an upstream branch and such branch can
be referred to as tracking branches.
Tracking branches allow you to use the git
the branch and repository.

pull

and git push command directly without specifying

If you clone a Git repository, your local master branch is created as a tracking branch for the master
branch of the origin repository (short: origin/master) by Git.

32.5. Setting up tracking branches

You create new tracking branches by specifying the remote branch during the creation of a branch.
The following example demonstrates that.
# setup a tracking branch called newbrach
# which tracks origin/newbranch
git checkout -b newbranch origin/newbranch

Instead of using the git checkout command you can also use the git branch command.
# origin/master used as exmaple but can be replaced
# Create branch based on remote branch
git branch [new_branch] origin/master

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git branch --track [new_branch] origin/master

The --no-track allows you to specify that you do not want to track a branch. You are later going to
explicitly add a tracking branch with the git branch -u command.
# instruct Git to create a branch with does
# not track another branch
git branch --no-track [new_branch_notrack] origin/master
# update this branch to track the origin/master branch
git branch -u origin/master [new_branch_notrack]

32.6. See the branch information for a remote repository

To see the tracking branches for a remote repository (short: remote) you can use the following
command.
# show all remote and tracking branches for origin
git remote show origin

An example output of this might look like the following.

* remote origin
Fetch URL: ssh://[email protected]/gitroot/e4/org.eclipse.e4.tools.git
Push URL: ssh://[email protected]/gitroot/e4/org.eclipse.e4.tools.git
HEAD branch: master
Remote branches:
integration
tracked
interm_rc2
tracked
master
tracked
smcela/HandlerAddonUpdates tracked
Local branches configured for 'git pull':
integration rebases onto remote integration
master
rebases onto remote master
testing
rebases onto remote master
Local refs configured for 'git push':
integration pushes to integration (up to date)
master
pushes to master
(up to date)

33. Updating your remote tracking branches with

git fetch
33.1. Fetch
The git fetch command updates your remote tracking branches, i.e. it updates the local copy of
branches stored in a remote repository. The following command updates the remote tracking

branches from the repository called origin.

git fetch origin

The fetch command only updates the remote tracking branches and none of the local branches and it
does not change the working tree of the Git repository. Therefore you can run the git fetch
command at any point in time.
After reviewing the changes in the remote tracking branch you can merge the changes into your local
branches or rebase your local branches onto the remote tracking branch.

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Tip
A detailed description of merge, rebase and cherry-pick can be found in
Section 36, Merging branches.

33.2. Fetch from all remote repositories

The git fetch command updates only the remote tracking branches for one remote repository. In
case you want to update the remote tracking branches of all your remote repositories you can use
the following command.
# simplification of the fetch command
# this runs git fetch for every remote repository
git remote update
# the same but remove all stale branches which
# are not in the remote anymore
git remote update --prune

33.3. Compare remote tracking branch with local branch

The following code shows a few options how you can compare your branches.
# show the log entries between the last local commit and the
# remote branch
git log HEAD..origin/master
# show the diff for each patch
git log -p HEAD..origin/master
# show a single diff
git diff HEAD...origin/master
# instead of using HEAD you can also
# specify the branches directly
git diff master origin/master

The above commands shows the changes introduced in HEAD compared to origin. If you want to see
the changes in origin compared to HEAD, you can switch the arguments or use the -R parameter.

33.4. Rebase your local branch onto the remote tracking branch
You can rebase your current local branch onto a remote tracking branch. The following commands
demonstrate that.
# assume you want to rebase master based on the latest fetch
# therefore check it out
git checkout master
# update your remote tracking branch
git fetch
# rebase your master onto origin/master
git rebase origin/master

Tip

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Rebasing branches.

33.5. Fetch compared with pull

The git pull command performs a git fetch and git merge (or git rebase based on your Git
settings). The git fetch does not perform any operations on your local branches. You can always run
the fetch command and review the incoming changes.

34. Merging
Git allows you to combine the changes of two branches. This process is called merging.

35. Command to merge two branches

The git merge command performs a merge. You can merge changes from one branch to the current
active one via the following command.
# syntax: git merge <branch-name>
# merges into your currently checked out branch
git merge testing

36. Merging branches

36.1. Fast-forward merge
If the commits which are merged are direct predecessors of the HEAD pointer of the current branch,
Git simplifies things by performing a so-called fast forward merge. This fast forward merge simply
moves the HEAD pointer of the current branch to the last commit which is being merged.
This process is depicted in the following graphics. The first picture assumes that master is checked
out and that you want to merge the changes of the branch labeled "branch" into your "master"
branch. Each commit points to its predecessor (parent).

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After the fast forward merge the HEAD pointer of "master" points to the existing commit.

36.2. Merge commit

If commits are merged which are not direct predecessors of the HEAD pointer of the current branch,
Git performs a so-called three-way-merge between the latest commits of the two branches, based on
the most recent common predecessor of both.

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As a result a so-called merge commit is created on the current branch which is combining the
respective changes from the two branches being merged. This commit points to both its
predecessors.

Tip

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with the git merge --no-ff command. This is a question of taste, some
teams prefer to always have merge commits, the author of this tutorial
prefers fast forward merges.

36.3. Specifying merge strategies and parameters

The -s parameter allows you to specify other merge strategies. This is demonstrated with the
following command.
For example, you can specify the ours strategy in which the result of the merge is always that of the
current branch head, effectively ignoring all changes from all other branches. This is demonstrated
with the following command.
# merge branch "obsolete" ignoring all
# changes in the branch
git merge -s ours obsolete

Warning
Be careful if you use the ours merge strategy, it ignores everything from
the branch which is merged.

Note
You typically use the ours merge strategy to document in the Git repository
that you have integrated a branch and decided to ignore all changes from
this branch.

The recursive merge strategy (default) allows you to specify flags with the -X parameter. For example
you can specify here the ours option. This option forces conflicting changes to be auto-resolved
cleanly by favoring the local version. Changes from the other branch that do not conflict with our
local version are reflected to the merge result. For a binary file, the entire contents are taken from
the local version.

Warning
The ours option for the recursive merge strategy should not be confused
with the ours merge strategy.

A similar option to ours is the theirs option. This option prefers the version from the branch which is
merged.
Both options are demonstrated in the following example code.
# Merge changes preferring our version
git merge -s recursive -X ours [branch_to_merge]
# Merge changes preferring the version from

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Another useful option is the ignore-space-change parameter which ignores whitespace changes.
For more information about the merge strategies and options see Git merge manpage.

37. Rebase
37.1. Rebasing branches
You can use Git to rebase one branch on another one. As described, the merge command combines
the changes of two branches. If you rebase a branch called A onto another, the git command takes
the changes introduced by the commits of branch A and applies them based on the HEAD of the
other branch. This way the changes in the other branch are also available in branch A.
The processes is displayed in the following picture. We want to rebase the branch onto master.

Running the rebase command creates a new commit with the changes of the branch on top of the
master branch.

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Performing a rebase from one branch to another branch does not create a merge commit.
The final result for the source code is the same as with merge but the commit history is cleaner; the
history appears to be linear.
# create new branch
git checkout -b rebasetest
# To some changes
ttoouucchh rebase1.txt
git add . && git commit -m "work in branch"
# do changes in master
git checkout master
# make some changes and commit into testing
eecchhoo "This will be rebased to rebasetest" > rebasefile.txt
git add rebasefile.txt
git commit -m "New file created"
# rebase the rebasetest onto master
git checkout rebasetest
git rebase master
# now you can fast forward your branch onto master
git checkout master
git merge rebasetest

Rebase can be used to place a feature branch in the local Git repository onto the changes of the
master branch. This ensures that your feature is close to the tip of the upstream branch until it is
finally published.

Note
There is a price for using rebase: if you rewrite more than one commit by

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"rewritten" by the rebase algorithm. Since merge/rebase/cherry-pick are

purely text-based and do not understand the semantics of these texts they
can end up with logically incorrect results, so such commits always should
be reviewed and tested in order to detect potential problems. Hence it might
be more efficient to merge a long feature branch into upstream instead of
rebasing it since with merge you only have to review and test a single
commit: the merge commit itself. Whereas with rebase you have to review
and test all rebased commits again.

37.2. Interactive rebase to edit history

The rebase command allows you to edit your commit history. For example, you can combine several
commits into one commit, reorder or skip commits and edit commit message.
This is useful as it allows the user to rewrite some of the commit history (cleaning it up) before
pushing your changes to a remote repository.
The following will create several commits which should be combined at a later point in time.
# Create a new file
ttoouucchh rebase.txt
# Add it to git
git add . && git commit -m "rebase.txt added to index"
# Do some silly changes and commit
eecchhoo "content" >> rebase.txt
git add . && git commit -m "added content"
eecchhoo " more content" >> rebase.txt
git add . && git commit -m "this is just a test"
eecchhoo " more content" >> rebase.txt
git add . && git commit -m "ups"
eecchhoo " more content" >> rebase.txt
git add . && git commit -m "yes"
eecchhoo " more content" >> rebase.txt
git add . && git commit -m "added more content"
eecchhoo " more content" >> rebase.txt
git add . && git commit -m "creation of important configuration file"
# Check the git log message
git log

We will combine the last seven commits. You can do this interactively via the following command.
git rebase -i HEAD~7

This will open your editor of choice and let you configure the rebase operation by defining which
commits to pick, squash or fixup.
Pick includes the selected commit. Squash combines the commit messages while fixup will disregard
the commit message. The following shows an example of the selection, we pick the last commit,
squash 5 commits and fix the sixth commit.
p
f
f
f
f
f
s

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7c6472e
4f73e68
bc9ec3f
701cbb5
910f38b
31d447d
e08d5c3

added more content

added content
this is just a test
ups
yes
added more content
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#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#

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Commands:
p, pick = use commit
r, reword = use commit, but edit the commit message
e, edit = use commit, but stop for amending
s, squash = use commit, but meld into previous commit
f, fixup = like "squash", but discard this commit's log message
x, exec = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.
If you remove a line here THAT COMMIT WILL BE LOST.
However, if you remove everything, the rebase will be aborted.

37.3. Good practice for rebase

You should always check your local branch history before pushing changes to another Git repository
or review system.
Git allows you to do local commits. This feature is frequently used to have commits to which you can
go back, if something should go wrong during a feature development. Before pushing you should
look at your local branch history and validate, whether or not these commits are relevant for others.
If they all belong to the implementation of the same feature you, most likely, want to summarize
them in one single commit before pushing.
The interactive rebase is basically rewriting the history. It is safe to do this as long as the commits
have not been pushed to another repository. This means commits should only be rewritten as long as
they have not been pushed.
If you rewrite and push a commit that is already present in other Git repositories, it will look as if you
implemented something that somebody had already implemented.

Warning
Avoid rebasing changes you already shared with others.

For example, assume that a user has a local feature branch and wants to push it onto a branch on the
remote repository. However, the branch has evolved and therefore pushing is not possible. Now it is
good practice to fetch the latest state of the branch from the remote repository. Afterwards you
rebase the local feature branch onto the remote tracking branch. This avoids an unnecessary merge
commit. This rebasing of a local feature branch is also useful to incorporate the latest changes from
remote into the local development, even if the user does not want to push right away.

Tip
Rebasing and amending commits is safe as long as you did not push any of
the changes involved in the rebase. For example, if you cloned a repository
and worked in this repository. Rebasing is a great way to keep the history
clean when contributing back your modifications.

Warning
In case you want to rewrite history for changes you have shared with

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# using forced push

git push -f

38. Selecting individual commits with git

cherry-pick
38.1. Applying a single commit
The git cherry-pick command allows you to select the patch which was introduced with an
individual commit and apply this patch on another branch. The patch is captured as a new commit on
the other branch.
This way you can select individual changes from one branch and transfer them to another branch.

Note
The new commit does not point back to its original commit so do not use
cherry-pick blindly since you may end up with several copies of the same
change. Most often cherry-pick is either used locally (to emulate rebase -i)
or to port individual bug fixes done on a development branch into
maintenance branches.

38.2. Using cherry-pick

In the following example you create a new branch and commit two changes.
# create new branch
git checkout -b picktest
# create some data and commit
ttoouucchh pickfile.txt
git add pickfile.txt
git commit -m "adds new file"
# create second commit
eecchhoo "changes to file" > pickfile.txt
git commit -a -m "changes in file"

You can check the commit history for example with the git log --oneline command.
# see change commit history
git log --oneline

# results in the following output

2fc2e55 changes in file
ebb46b7 adds new file
[MORE COMMITS]
330b6a3 initial commit

The following command selects the first commit based on the commit id and applies its changes to
the master branch. This creates a new commit on the master branch.

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The cherry-pick command can be used to change the order of commits. git cherry-pick also
accepts commit ranges for example in the following command.
git checkout master
# pick both commits
git cherry-pick picktest~..picktest~1

Tip
See Section 4.2, Commit ranges with the double dot operator for more
information about commit ranges.

39. Solving merge conflicts

39.1. What is a merge conflict
A merge conflict occurs if two commits from different branches have modified the same content and
Git cannot automatically determine how both changes should be combined when merging these
branches.
If a merge conflict occurs, Git will mark the conflict in the file and the programmer has to resolve the
conflict manually. After resolving it, he can add the file to the staging area and commit the change.

39.2. Example for solving a merge conflict

In the following example you first create a merge conflict and afterwards you resolve the conflict and
apply the change to the Git repository.
The following code creates a merge conflict. It assumes that repo1 and repo2 have the same origin
repository defined.
# Switch to the first directory
ccdd ~/repo01
# Make changes
eecchhoo "Change in the first repository" > mergeconflict.txt
# Stage and commit
git add . && git commit -a -m "Will create merge conflict 1"
# Switch to the second directory
ccdd ~/repo02
# Make changes
ttoouucchh mergeconflict.txt
eecchhoo "Change in the second repository" > mergeconflict.txt
# Stage and commit
git add . && git commit -a -m "Will create merge conflict 2"
# Push to the master repository
git push
# Now try to push from the first directory
# Switch to the first directory
ccdd ~/repo01
# Try to push --> you will get an error message
git push
# Get the changes via a pull
# this creates the merge conflict in your

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Git marks the conflict in the affected file. This file looks like the following.
<<<<<<< HEAD
Change in the first repository
=======
Change in the second repository
>>>>>>> b29196692f5ebfd10d8a9ca1911c8b08127c85f8

The above is the part from your repository and the below one from the remote repository. You can
edit the file manually and afterwards commit the changes.
Alternatively, you could use the git mergetool command. git mergetool starts a configurable merge
tool that displays the changes in a split screen. git mergetool is not always available. It is also safe to
edit the file with merge conflicts in a normal editor.
# Either edit the file manually or use
git mergetool
# You will be prompted to select which merge tool you want to use
# For example on Ubuntu you can use the tool "meld"
# After merging the changes manually, commit them
git commit -m "merged changes"

Instead of using the -m option in the above example you can also use the git commit command
without this option. In this case the command opens your default editor with a default commit
messages about the merged conflicts. It is good practice to use this message.

40. Define alias

40.1. Using an alias
An alias in Git allows you to setup your own Git command. For example, you can define an alias
which is a short form of your own favorite commands or you can combine several commands with an
alias.

40.2. Alias examples

The following defines an alias to see the staged changes with the new git staged command.
git config --global alias.staged 'diff --cached'

Or you can define an alias for a detailed git log command. The following command defines the git
ll

alias.

git config --global alias.ll 'log --graph --oneline --decorate --all'

You can also run external commands. In this case you start the alias definition with a ! character. For
example, the following defines the git ac command which combines git add . -A and git commit
commands.
# define alias
git config --global alias.act '!git add . -A && git commit'
# to use it
git ac -m "message"

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In the past msysGit for Windows had problems with an alias beginning
with !, but it has been reported that this now works with msysGit, too .

41. Submodules - repositories inside other Git

repositories
41.1. Using submodules
Git allows you to include other Git repositories into a Git repository. This is useful in case you want to
include a certain library in another repository or in case you want to aggregate certain Git
repositories.
Git calls these included Git repositories submodules. Git allows you to commit, pull and push to these
repositories independently.
You add a submodule to a Git repository via the git submodule add command. The git submodule
init

command creates the local configuration file for the submodules if it does not yet exist.

# Add a submodule to your Git repo

git submodule add [URL to Git repo]
# Initialize submodule configuration
git submodule init

41.2. Updating submodules

To pull in changes into a Git repository including the changes in submodules you can use the
--recurse-submodules

parameter in the git pull command.

# pull in the changes from main repo and submodules

git pull --recurse-submodules

Use the git submodule update command to set the submodules to the commit specified by the main
repository.
# setting the submodules to the commit defined by master
git submodule update

Warning
The fact that submodules track commits and not branches frequently
leads to confusion. That is why Git 1.8.2 added the option to also track
branches. Read the following sections to more learn about this.

41.3. Tracking commits

By default submodules are tracked by commits, i.e. the main Git repository remembers a certain

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submodule to that particular commit. The submodule repository tracks its own content which is
nested into the main repository. This main repository refers to a commit of the nested submodule
repository.

Warning
This means that if you pull in new changes into the submodules, you need
to create a new commit in your main repository in order to track the
updates of the nested submodules.

If you update your submodule and want to use this update in your main repository, you need to
commit this change in your main repository. The git submodule update command sets the
submodule to the commit referred to in the main repository.
The following example shows how to update a submodule to its latest commit in its master branch.
# update submodule in the master branch
# skip this if you use --recurse-submodules
# and have the master branch checked out
ccdd [submodule directory]
git checkout master
git pull
# commit the change in main repo
# to use the latest commit in master of the submodule
ccdd ..
git add [submodule directory]
git commit -m "moved submodule to latest commit in master"
# share your changes
git push

Another developer can get the update by pulling in the changes and running the submodules update
command.
# another developer wants to get the changes
git pull
# this updates the submodule to the latest
# commit in master as set in the last example
git submodule update

Warning
With this setup you are tracking commits, so if the master branch in the
submodule moves on, you are still pointing to the existing commit. You
need to repeat this procedure every time you want to use new changes of
the submodules. See the next chapter for an alternative with a Git release
of version 1.8.2 or higher.

41.4. Tracking branches with submodules

Since tracking of branches is a very common requirement, Git added the option to track a certain
branch in its 1.8.2 release. To track branches you specify the branch with the -b parameter during the
submodule add

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# add submodule to track master branch

git submodule add -b master [URL to Git repo];
# update your submodule
# --remote will also fetch and ensure that
# the latest commit from the branch is used
git submodule update --remote
# to avoid fetching use
git submodule update --remote --no-fetch

42. Error search with git bisect

42.1. Using git bisect
The git bisect command allows you to run a binary search through the commit history to identify
the commit which introduced an issue. You specify a range of commits and a script that the bisect
command uses to identify whether a commit is good or bad.
This script must return 0 if the condition is fulfilled and non-zero if the condition is not fulfilled.

42.2. git bisect example

Create a new Git repository, create the text1.txt file and commit it to the repository. Do a few more
changes, remove the file and again do a few more changes.
We use a simple shell script which checks the existence of a file. Ensure that this file is executable.
#!/bin/bash
FILE=$1
iiff [ -f $FILE ];
tthheenn
eexxiitt 0;
eellssee
eexxiitt 1;
ffii

Afterwards use the git bisect command to find the bad commit. First you use the git bisect start
command to define a commit known to be bad (showing the problem) and a commit known to be
good (not showing the problem).
# define that bisect should check
# the last 5 commits
git bisect start HEAD HEAD~5

Afterwards run the bisect command using the shell script.

# assumes that the check script
# is a directory above the current
git bisect run ../check.sh test1.txt

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The above serves as example. The existence of a file can be easier verified
with the git bisect command: git bisect run test -f test1.txt

43. Rewriting commit history with git filter-branch

43.1. Using git filter-branch
The git filter-branch command allows you to rewrite the Git commit history for selected branches
and to apply custom filters on each revision. This creates different hashes for all modified commits.
This implies you also get new IDs for all commits based on any rewritten commit.
The command allows you to filter for several values, e.g. the author, the message, etc. For details
please see the following link.
http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-filter-branch.html

Warning
Using filter-branch is dangerous as it changes the Git repository. It
changes the commit IDs and reacting on such a change requires explicit
action from the developer, e.g. he may try to rebase his stale local branch
onto the corresponding rewritten remote tracking branch.

Note
A practical case for using git filter-branch is where you have added a file
which contains a password to the Git repository, and you want to remove
the password from the history.

43.2. filter-branch example

The following listing shows an example on how to change the committer name and his email address
via the git filter-branch command.
git filter-branch -f --env-filter \
"GIT_AUTHOR_NAME='Test Vogel'; GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL='[email protected]'; \
GIT_COMMITTER_NAME='Lars Vogel'; \
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL='[email protected]';" HEAD

44. Create and apply patches

44.1. What is a patch?
A patch is a text file that contains changes to the source code. A patch created with the git
format-patch

command includes meta-information about the commit (committer, date, commit

message, etc) and also contains the diff of any binary data in the commit, for example, an image.

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local repository. The metadata is preserved.

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Alternatively you could create a diff file with the git diff command, but this diff file does not contain
the metadata information.

44.2. Create and apply patches

The following example creates a branch, changes several files and creates a commit recording these
changes.
# Create a new branch
git branch mybranch
# Use this new branch
git checkout mybranch
# Make some changes
ttoouucchh test05
# Change some content in an existing file
eecchhoo "New content for test01" >test01
# Commit this to the branch
git add .
git commit -a -m "First commit in the branch"

The next example creates a patch for these changes.

# creates a patch --> git format-patch master
git format-patch origin/master
# This creates the file:
# patch 0001-First-commit-in-the-branch.patch

To apply this patch to your master branch in a different clone of the repository, switch to it and use
the git apply command.
# Switch to the master
git checkout master
# Apply the patch
git apply 0001-First-commit-in-the-branch.patch

Afterwards you can commit the changes introduced by the patches and delete the patch file.
# Patch is applied to master
# Change can be committed
git add .
git commit -a -m "Applied patch"
# Delete the patch file
rrmm 0001-First-commit-in-the-branch.patch

Tip
Use the git am command to apply and commit the changes in a single step.
To apply and commit all patch files in the directory use, for example, the git
am *.patch

command.

44.3. Create a patch for a selected commit

You can use specify the commit id and the number of patches which should be created. For example,
to create a patch for selected commits based on the HEAD pointer you can use the following

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# create patch for the last commit based on HEAD

git format-patch -1 HEAD
# create a patch series for the last three commits
# based on head
git format-patch -3 HEAD

45. Git commit and other hooks

45.1. Usage of Git hooks
Git provides commit hooks, e.g. programs which can be executed at a pre-defined point during the
work with the repository. For example, you can ensure that the commit message has a certain format
or trigger an action after a push to the server.
These programs are usually scripts and can be written in any language, e.g. as shell scripts or in Perl,
Python etc. You can also implement a hook, for example, in C and use the resulting executable. Git
calls the scripts based on a naming convention.

45.2. Client and server side commit hooks

Git provides hooks for the client and for the server side. On the server side you can use the
pre-receive

and post-receive script to check the input or to trigger actions after the commit.

If you create a new Git repository, Git creates example scripts in the .git/hooks directory. The
example scripts end with .sample. To activate them make them executable and remove the .sample
from the filename.
The hooks are documented under the following URL: Git hooks manual page.

46. Line endings on different platforms

Linux and Mac use different line endings than Windows. Windows uses a carriage-return and a
linefeed character (CRLF), while Linux and Mac only uses a linefeed character (LF).
To avoid commits because of line ending differences in your Git repository you should configure all
clients to write the same line ending to the Git repository.
On Windows systems you can tell Git to convert line endings during a checkout to CRLF and to
convert them back to LF during commit. Use the following setting for this.
git config --global core.autocrlf true

On Linux and Mac you can tell Git to convert CRLF during a checkout to LF with the following setting.
git config --global core.autocrlf input

47. Migrating from SVN

To convert Subversion projects to Git you can use a RubyGem called svn2git which relies on git svn
internally and handles most of the trouble.

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sudo apt-get install git-svn ruby rubygems

sudo gem install svn2git

Let's say you have a repository called http://svn.example.com/repo with the default layout (trunk,
branches, tags) and already prepared a local git repository where you want to put everything, then
navigate to your git directory and use the following commands:
svn2git http://svn.example.com/repo --verbose
svn2git --rebase

The parameter --verbose adds detailed output to the commandline so you can see what is going on
including potential errors. The second svn2git --rebase command aligns your new git repository
with the svn import. You are now ready to push to the web and get forked! If your svn layout deviates
from the standard or other problems occur, seek svn2git --help for documentation on additional
parameters.

48. Frequently asked questions

48.1. Can Git handle symlinks?
The usage of symlinks requires that the operating system used by the developers supports them.
Git as version control system can handle symlinks.
If the symlink points to a file, then Git stores the path information it is symlinking to, and the file type.
This is similar to a symlink to a directory; Git does not store the contents under the symlinked
directory.

49. Git series

This tutorial is part of a series about the Git version control system. See the other tutorials for more
information.
Introduction into Git
Hosting Git repositories at Github, Bitbucket or on your own server
Typical workflows with Git
EGit - Teamprovider for Eclipse

50. Get the Kindle edition

This tutorial is part of a book available in paper print and electronic form for your Kindle.

51. Support free vogella tutorials

Maintaining high quality free online tutorials is a lot of work. Please support free tutorials by
donating or by reporting typos or errors.

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Please consider a contribution if this article helped you.

51.2. Questions and Discussion

If you find errors in this tutorial, please notify me (see the top of the page). Please note that due to
the high volume of feedback I receive, I cannot answer questions to your implementation. Ensure you
have read the vogella FAQ as I don't respond to questions already answered there.

52. Links and Literature

Git homepage
Video with Linus Torvalds on Git
Git on Windows

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