Version Control GIT Intro Local GIT Branches Remote GIT Forges Bazar Extras

GIT for Beginners

Anthony Baire

Université de Rennes 1 / UMR IRISA

March 21, 2024

This tutorial is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 France License

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Objectives

• Understand the basics about version control systems

• Getting started with GIT

• working with a local repository
• synchronising with remote repositories

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Summary
1. About Version Control Tools

2. Overview of GIT

3. Working locally

4. Branching & merging

5. Interacting with a remote repository

6. Hosting your code

7. Working with third-party contributors

8. Extras
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Part 1.
About Version Control Tools
• Definition
• Use cases
• Base concepts
• History

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What is a version control system ?

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_control

Revision control [...] is the management of changes to documents,

computer programs, large web sites, and other collections of information.
Changes are usually identified by a number or letter code, termed the
”revision number” [...]. For example, an initial set of files is ”revision 1”.
When the first change is made, the resulting set is ”revision 2”, and so
on.
Each revision is associated with a timestamp and the person making the
change.
Revisions can be compared, restored, and with some types of files,
merged.

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Use case 1: keeping an history

The life of your software/article is recorded from the beginning

• at any moment you can revert to a previous revision 1

• the history is browseable, you can inspect any revision 2

• when was it done ?

• who wrote it ?
• what was changed ?
• why ?
• in which context ?

• all the deleted content remains accessible in the history

1
let’s say your not happy with your latest changes
2
this is useful for understanding and fixing bugs
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Use case 2: working with others

VC tools help you to:

• share a collection of files with your team

• merge changes done by other users

• ensure that nothing is accidentally overwritten

• know who you must blame when something is broken

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Use case 3: branching

You may have multiple variants of the same software, materialised

as branches, for example:

• a main branch
• a maintainance branch (to provide bugfixes in older releases)
• a development branch (to make disruptive changes)
• a release branch (to freeze code before a new release)

VC tools will help you to:

• handle multiple branches concurrently

• merge changes from a branch into another one

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Use case 4: working with external contributors

VC tools help working with third-party contributors:

• it gives them visibility of what is happening in the project

• it helps them to submit changes (patches) and

it helps you to integrate these patches

• forking the development of a software and merging it back

into mainline3

3
decentralised tools only
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Use case 5: scaling

Some metrics4 about the Linux kernel (developed with GIT):

• about 10000 changesets in each new version

(every 2 or 3 months)

• 1000+ unique contributors

4
source: the Linux Foundation
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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Some illustrations

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Taxinomy
Architecture:

• centralised → everyone works on the same unique repository

• decentralised → everyone works on his own repository

Concurrency model:

• lock before edit (mutual exclusion)

• merge after edit (may have conflicts)

History layout:

• tree (merges are not recorded)

• direct acyclic graph

Atomicity scope: file vs whole tree GIT

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Other technical aspects

Space efficiency: storing the whole history of a project requires
storage space (storing every revision of every file)
→ most VC tools use delta compression to optimise the space
(except Git which uses object packing instead)

Access method: A repository is identified with a URL. VC tools

offer multiple ways of interacting with remote repositories.

• dedicated protocol (svn:// git://)

• direct access to a local repository (file://path or just path)
• direct access over SSH (ssh:// git+ssh:// svn+ssh://)
• over http (http:// https://)

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Creating new revisions

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Creating new revisions

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Creating new revisions

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Creating new revisions

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Creating new revisions

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Creating new revisions

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What shall be stored into the repository ?

You should store all files that are not generated by a tool:

• source files (.c .cpp .java .y .l .tex . . . )

• build scripts / project files (Makefile configure.in
Makefile.am CMakefile.txt wscript .sln)
• documentation files (.txt README . . . )
• resource files (images, audio, . . . )

You should not store generated files

(or you will experience many unneccessary conflicts)

• .o .a .so .dll .class .jar .exe .dvi .ps .pdf

• source files / build scripts when generated by a tool
(like autoconf, cmake, lex, yacc)
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Guidelines for committing

• commit often

• commit independent changes in separate revisions

• in commit messages, describe the rationale behind of your

changes (it is often more important than the change itself)

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History (Centralised Tools)

• 1st generation (single-file, local-only, lock-before-edit)
• 1972: SCCS
• 1982: RCS
• 1985: PVCS

• 2nd generation (multiple-files, client-server, merge-before-commit,

contributions through patch files (1985))
• 1986: CVS
• 1992: Rational ClearCase
• 1994: Visual SourceSafe

• 3rd generation (+ repository-level atomicity)

• 1995: Perforce
• 2000: Subversion
• + many others

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History (Decentralised tools)

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Part 2.
Overview of GIT
• History
• Git’s design & features
• User interfaces

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History

• before 2005: Linux sources were managed with Bitkeeper

(proprietary DVCS tool) 5

• April 2005: revocation of the free-use licence

(because of some reverse engineering)

• No other tools were enough mature to meet Linux’s dev

constraints (distributed workflow, integrity, performance).
⇒ Linus Torvald started developing Git

• June 2005: first Linux release managed with Git

• December 2005: Git 1.0 released

5
now open source! (since 2016)
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Git Design objectives

• distributed workflow (decentralised)

• easy merging (merge deemed more frequent than commit)

• integrity (protection against accidental/malicious corruptions)

• speed & scalability

• ease of use

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Git Design choices

• Easily hackable
• simple data structures (blobs, trees, commits, tags)
• no formal branch history
(a branch is just a pointer to the last commit)
• low-level commands exposed to the user

• Integrity
• cryptographic tracking of history (SHA-1 hashes)
• tag signatures (GPG)

• Merging
• pluggable merge strategies
• staging area (index)

• Performance
• no delta encoding
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Git Commands

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Git GUIs: gitk → browsing the history

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Git GUIs: git gui → preparing commits

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3rd party GUIs

https://git-scm.com/downloads/guis

• Anchorpoint • GitFinder • Glint • Sublime Merge

• Aurees • GitHub • Guitar • TortoiseGit
• CommandGit Desktop • LazyGit • Tower
• Cong • GitKraken • Magit • Vershd
• Fork • GitUI • MeGit • Working Copy
• Fugitive • GitUp • NitroGit • giggle
• Git Extensions • GitViewer • Pocket Git • git-cola
• Git Klient • GitVine • PolyGit • gitg
• GitAhead • Gitfox • RepoZ • gitonic
• GitAtomic • Gitgui • SmartGit • ungit
• GitDrive • Gitnuro • SnailGit
• GitFiend • Gittyup • SourceTree

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Part 3.
Working locally
• creating a repository
• adding & committing files
• the staging area (or index)

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Create a new repository

git init myrepository

This command creates the directory myrepository.

• the repository is located in myrepository/.git

• the (initially empty) working copy is located in myrepository/
 
$ pwd
/tmp
$ git init helloworld
Initialized empty Git repository in /tmp/helloworld/.git/
$ ls -a helloworld/
. .. .git
$ ls helloworld/.git/
branches config description HEAD hooks info objects refs
 

Note: The /.git/ directory contains your whole history,

do not delete it6
6
unless your history is merged into another repository
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Commit your first files

git add file

git commit [ -m message ]
 
$ cd helloworld
$ echo 'Hello World!' > hello
$ git add hello
$ git commit -m "added file 'hello'"
[master (root-commit) e75df61] added file 'hello'
1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 hello
 

Note: “master” is the name of the default branch created by

git init

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The staging area (aka the “index”)

Usual version control systems provide two spaces:

• the repository
(the whole history of your project)

• the working tree (or local copy)

(the files you are editing and that will be in the next commit)

Git introduces an intermediate space : the staging area

(also called index)
The index stores the files scheduled for the next commit:

• git add files → copy files into the index

• git commit → commits the content of the index

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The staging area (aka the “index”)

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Update a file
 
$ echo 'blah blah blah' >> hello
$ git commit
# On branch master
# Changed but not updated:
# (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
# (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
# modified: hello
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
 

Git complains because the index is unchanged (nothing to commit)

→ We need to run git add to copy the file into the index
 
$ git add hello
$ git commit -m "some changes"
[master f37f2cf] some changes
1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 

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Bypassing the index7

Running git add & git commit for every iteration is tedious.
GIT provides a way to bypass the index.
git commit file1 [ file2 . . . ]

This command commits files (or dirs) directly from the working
tree

Note: when bypassing the index, GIT ignores new files:

• “git commit .” commits only files that were present in the last commit
(updated files)
• “git add . && git commit” commits everything in the working tree
(including new files)

7
also named “partial commit”
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Bypassing the index

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Deleting files

git rm file
→ remove the file from the index and from the working copy
git commit
→ commit the index
 
$ git rm hello
rm 'hello'
$ git commit -m "removed hello"
[master 848d8be] removed hello
1 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
delete mode 100644 hello
 

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Showing differences
git diff [ rev a [ rev b ] ] [ -- path . . . ]

→ shows the differences between two revisions rev a and rev b

(in a format suitable for the patch utility)

• by default rev a is the index

• by default rev b is the working copy

git diff --staged [ rev a ] [ -- path . . . ]

→ shows the differences between rev a and the index

• by default rev a is HEAD (a symbolic references pointing to the

last commit)

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About git diff and the index

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 Diff example 
$ echo foo >> hello
$ git add hello
$ echo bar >> hello

$ git diff
--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
Hello World!
foo
+bar

$ git diff --staged

--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
Hello World!
+foo

$ git diff HEAD

--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1 +1,3 @@
Hello World!
+foo
+bar
 
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Resetting changes

git reset [ --hard ] [ -- path . . . ]

git reset cancels the changes in the index (and possibly in the
working copy)

• git reset drops the changes staged into the index8 , but the
working copy is left intact

• git reset --hard drops all the changes in the index and in
the working copy

8
it restores the files as they were in the last commit
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Resetting changes in the working copy9

git checkout -- path

This command restores a file (or directory) as it appears in the

index (thus it drops all unstaged changes)
 
$ git diff HEAD
--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1 +1,3 @@
Hello World!
+foo
+bar
$ git checkout -- .
$ git diff HEAD
--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
Hello World!
+foo
 

9
since v2.23 you may also use the experimental command git restore
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Other local commands

• git status → show the status of the index and working

copy

• git show → show the details of a commit (metadata + diff)

• git log → show the history

• git mv → move/rename a file10

• git tag → creating/deleting tags (to identify a particular

revision)

10
note that git mv is strictly equivalent to: “cp src dst && git rm src &&
git add dst” (file renaming is not handled formally, but heuristically)
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Exercises
1. create a new repository

2. create a new file, add it to the index and commit it

3. launch gitk to display it. Keep the window open and hit F5 after each
command (to visualise the results of your commands)

4. modify the file and make a new commit

5. rename the file (either with git mv or git add+git rm), do a git status
before committing (to ensure the renaming is correctly handled)

6. delete the file and commit it

7. create two new files and commit them. Then modify their content in the
working copy and display the changes with git diff

8. add one file into the index but keep the other one. Display the changes
between:
• the index and the working copy
• the last commit and the index
• the last commit and the working copy

9. run git reset to reset the index

10. run git reset --hard to reset the index and the working copy
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Part 4.
Branching & merging
• How GIT handles its history
• Creating new branches
• Merging & resolving conflicts

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How GIT handles its history

Each commit object has a list of parent

commits:
• 0 parents → initial commit
• 1 parent → ordinary commit
• 2+ parents → result of a merge

→ This is a Direct Acyclic Graph

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How GIT handles its history

• There is no formal “branch history”

→ a branch is just a pointer on the latest commit.
(git handles branches and tags in the same way internally)

• Commits are identified with SHA-1 hash (160 bits)

computed from:
• the commited files
• the meta data (commit message, author name, . . . )
• the hashes of the parent commits
→ A commit id (hash) identifies securely and reliably its
content and all the previous revisions.

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Creating a new branch

git checkout -b new branch [ starting point ]

• new branch is the name of the new branch

• starting point is the starting location of the branch (possibly a
commit id, a tag, a branch, . . . ). If not present, git will use
the current location.
 
$ git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
$ git checkout -b develop
Switched to a new branch 'develop'
$ git status
# On branch develop
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
 

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Switching between branches11

git checkout [-m] branch name
 
$ git status
# On branch develop
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
$ git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'
 

Note: it may fail when the working copy is not clean. Add -m to
request merging your local changes into the destination branch.
 
$ git checkout master
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout: hello
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can switch branches.
Aborting
$ git checkout -m master
M hello
Switched to branch 'master'
 

11
since v2.23 you may also use the experimental command git switch
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Merging a branch

git merge other branch

This will merge the changes in other branch into the current
branch.
 
$ git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
$ git merge develop
Merge made by recursive.
dev | 1 +
hello | 4 +++-
2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 dev
 

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Notes about merging

• The result of git merge is immediately committed

(unless there is a conflict)

• The new commit object has two parents.

→ the merge history is recorded

• git merge applies only the changes since the last common
ancestor in the other branch.
→ if the branch was already merged previously, then only the
changes since the last merge will be merged.

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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Branching example

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How Git merges files ?

If the same file was independently modified in the two branches,
then Git needs to merge these two variants
• textual files are merged on a per-line basis:
• lines changed in only one branch are automatically merged
• if a line was modified in the two branches, then Git reports a
conflict. Conflict zones are enclosed within <<<<<<< >>>>>>>
 
Here are lines that are either unchanged from the common
ancestor, or cleanly resolved because only one side changed.
<<<<<<< yours:sample.txt
Conflict resolution is hard;
let's go shopping.
=======
Git makes conflict resolution easy.
>>>>>>> theirs:sample.txt
And here is another line that is cleanly resolved or unmodified.

 

• binary files always raise a conflict and require manual merging

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Merge conflicts

In case of a conflict:

• unmerged files (those having conflicts) are left in the

working tree and marked as “unmerged”12

• the other files (free of conflicts) and the metadata (commit

message, parents commits, ...) are automatically added into
the index (the staging area)

12
Git will refuse to commit the new revision until all the conflicts are
explicitely resolved by the user
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Resolving conflicts

There are two ways to resolve conflicts:

• either edit the files manually, then run

git add file → to check the file into the index
or
git rm file → to delete the file

• or with a conflict resolution tool(xxdiff, kdiff3, emerge, ...)

git mergetool [ file ]

Then, once all conflicting files are checked in the index, you just
need to run git commit to commit the merge.

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Conflict example

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Conflict example

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Conflict example

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Conflict example

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Conflict example

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Conflict example

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Conflict example

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Conflict example

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Deleting branches
git branch -d branch name

This command has some restrictions, it cannot delete:

• the current branch (HEAD)

• a branch that has not yet been merged into the current branch
 
$ git branch -d feature-a
Deleted branch feature-a (was 45149ea).
$ git branch -d feature-b
error: The branch 'feature-b' is not fully merged.
If you are sure you want to delete it, run 'git branch -D feature-b'.
$ git branch -d master
error: Cannot delete the branch 'master' which you are currently on.

 

→ git branch -d is safe13

13
unlike git branch -D which deletes unconditionnally ( ) the branch
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Exercises
0. use “gitk --all” to display all branches
(and remember to hit F5 after each command to visualise the changes)

1. create a new branch named “develop”

2. make some commits in this branch

3. go back to branch “master” and make some commits

4. merge branch “develop” into “master”

5. make a new commit in each branch so as to generate a conflict (edit the

same part of a file)

6. merge branch “develop” into “master”, and fix the conflict

7. merge “master” into “develop”

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Part 5.
Interacting with a remote
repository
• Overview
• Creating a shared repository
• Configuring a remote repository
• Sending changes (push)
• Receiving changes (pull)

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Simple workflow (Centralised)

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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Team Workflow

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How git handles remote repositories

• It is possible to work with multiple remote repositories

• Each remote repository is identified with a local alias.

When working with a unique remote repository, it is usually
named origin14

• Remote repositories are mirrored within the local repository

• Remote branches are mapped in a separate namespace:

remote/name/branch.
Examples:
• master refers to the local master branch
• remote/origin/master refers to the master branch of the
remote repository named origin

14
default name used by git clone
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Adding a remote repository

git remote add name url

• name is a local alias identifying the remote repository

• url is the location of the remote repository

Examples:
 
$ git remote add origin /tmp/helloworld.git

$ git remote add origin ssh://[email protected]/gitroot/helloworld/helloworld.git

 

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Pushing (uploading) local changes to the remote repository

git push

• git push examines the current branch, then:

• if the branch is tracking an upstream branch, then the local
changes (commits) are propagated to the remote branch
• if not, then nothing is sent
(new branches created locally are considered private by default)

• In case of conflict git push will fail and require to run git
pull first

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Pushing a new branch to the remote repository

git push -u destination repository ref [ref . . . ]

• explicit variant of git push: the local reference ref (a branch

or a tag) is pushed to the remote destination repository

• -u/--set-upstream configures the local branch to track the

remote branch15 (this is usually what you want)
 
$ git push
fatal: The current branch master has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use
git push --set-upstream origin master

$ git push -u origin master

To /tmp/helloworld.git/
* [new branch] master -> master
Branch master set up to track remote branch master from origin.
 

15
so that git pull an git push work with that repository by default
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Fetching (downloading) changes from the remote

repository

git fetch

git fetch updates the local mirror of the remote repository:

• it downloads the new commits from the remote repository

• it updates the references remote/remote name/* to match
their counterpart in the remote repository.

Example: the branch remote/origin/master in the local

repository is updated to match the new position of the branch
master in the remote reposity

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Merging remote changes into the current local branch

Changes in the remote repository can be merged explicitely into

the local branch by running git merge
 
$ git status
# On branch master
$ git fetch
...
$ git merge origin/master
 

In practice, it is more convenient to use git pull, which is a

shortcut for git fetch + git merge
git pull
 
$ git pull
 

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Remote example

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Importing a new remote branch

git checkout branch name

If the branch name does not exist locally, then GIT looks for it in
the remote repositories. If it finds it, then it creates the local
branch and configures it to track the remote branch.
 
$ git branch --all
* master
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/new-fancy-feature
$ git checkout new-fancy-feature
Branch new-fancy-feature set up to track remote branch new-fancy-feature from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'new-fancy-feature'
$ git branch --all
master
* new-fancy-feature
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/new-fancy-feature
 

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Cloning a repository
git clone url [ directory ]

• git clone makes a local copy of a remote repository and

configures it as its origin remote repository.

• git clone is a shortcut for the following sequence:

1. git init directory
2. cd directory
3. git remote add origin url
4. git fetch
5. git checkout master

• In practice you will rarely use git init, git remote and
git fetch directly, but rather use higher-level commands:
git clone and git pull.

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Typical Workflow

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Exercises

0. (remember to visualise your operations with “gitk --all” → hit F5)

1. clone the following repository https://allgo.inria.fr/git/hello

2. use gitk --all (to display remote branches too)

3. make some commits and synchronise (pull/push) with the origin repository

4. do it again so as to experience and resolve a conflict

5. use git fetch to review remote commits before merging them

6. create a new branch, make a commit and publish it to the shared repository

7. check out a branch created by another participant

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Part 6.
Hosting your code
• GIT forges
• The bug tracker
• Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment

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What is a forge (1/2)

• Remote repositories need to be hosted somewhere on the

network

• The most popular way to use forge, which hosts the repository
as a project, along with lot of features useful for software
development

• The most popular forge are:

• Github (SAAS)
• Gitlab (SAAS, also available in open-source,
eg: https://gitlab.istic.univ-rennes1.fr/)

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What is a forge (2/2)

• For each hosted project, the forge typically provides:

• a GIT repository
• a bug tracker
• issues (bug reports, todo items, roadmap)
• pull requests/merge requests (code submission, code review)
• continuous integration & deployment (automated tasks)
• package registries (to publish binary artificats, eg: maven
packages, docker images)
• a wiki and/or a static web site (pages)
• a WEB editor
• an API for plugging external tools (eg. analytics, security
scanner, . . . )
• fine-grained access control
• ...

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Bug tracker (1/2)

Work items are referred as issues:

• each issue has a unique id, prefixed with # (eg: #1, #2)
• it contains a text description of the problem and a discussion
• issues may be grouped by tags and/or by milestone
• issues may be assigned to a developer or team
• complex issues may be subdivided into smaller issues
• repository integration: issues are automatically closed when the text
“Fix #id” or “Close #id” is present in:
• the message of a commit merged into the main branch
• the description of a pull request merged into the main branch

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Bug tracker (2/2)

Code submissions are referred as pull request (in Github) or merge
request (in Gitlab):

• each request has a unique id, prefixed with # (in Github)

or ! (in Gitlab)
• it refers to a git branch (possibly hosted in another project) to be
merged into the current project
• it contains a text description of the implementation and a discussion
• it facilitates code review before accepting a submission, the UI
displays a diff of the submitted code (global diff, per-commit diff,
per-update diff when the origin branch is updated)
• closing a request may be done with merging (accepted) or without
merging (rejected)
• a request may refer to one or more issues, multiple pull requests
may refer to the same issue (in case multiple implementation were
submitted, possibly from different people)
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Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (1/2)

Automatic tasks may be scripted in .gitlab-ci.yml (in Gitlab) or
in .github/workflows/ (in Github)

• it may be used for:

• Continuous Integration (eg: build the software, run the
testsuites), so as to detect bugs as soon as possible
• Continuous Deployment (eg: publish artifacts, deploy the
service, update the website/genrated doc)
• CI/CD jobs are run on a runner outside the forge, runners may be
dedicated to a project/group (private runner) or available to any
project (shared runner)
• the same job may be run on multiple runners (eg: to support
multiple target platforms)
• when a job fails, the user triggering it is notified by e-mail

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Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (2/2)

security consideration

• be very cautious when the same project is configured to:

• run jobs on merge requests submitted by external contributers
• perform continuous deployment
• a malicious user may execute arbitrary code in your runner and find
a path to attack your production server / infect your published
artifacts (eg: by poisonning caches, by rooting the runner, . . . )
• you must ensure that proper isolation is implemented.
If unsure, it is wiser to implement continuous deployment using a
separate project and separate runner.
• example horror story at github:
https://adnanthekhan.com/2023/12/20/one-supply-chain-attack-to-rule-them-all/

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Part 7.
Working with third-party
contributors
• Common workflows
• Generating & applying patches
• Merging from third-party repositories

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Common workflows

more about workflows at: https://www.atlassian.com/git/workflows

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About 3rd party contributions

Third-party contributors16 can submit their contributions by:

• sending patches (the traditional way)

• publishing their own (unofficial) repository and asking an

official developer to merge from this repository
(pull request or merge request)

16
developers who are not allowed to push to the official repository
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Explicit pull/push

push/pull can work on any arbitrary repository identified by its url

git push url ref [ref...]

git push url local ref:remote ref ... (push as a different name)

→ push the local ref (a branch or a tag) to repository url

git pull url ref [ref...]

→ merge the remote ref (a branch or a tag) from repository url

into the current local branch

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Decentralised workflow

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Reviewing a remote branch

git pull merges immediately the remote branch into the current
local branch.
In practice you may prefer to review it before merging.

git fetch url branch

→ fetch the branch branch from the repository url and store it
temporarily17 as FETCH HEAD
 
$ git fetch git://git.raoul-duke.org/helloworld.git master
From git://git.raoul-duke.org/helloworld.git
* branch master -> FETCH_HEAD
$ gitk FETCH_HEAD
...review the commits ...
$ git merge FETCH_HEAD
 

17
the FETCH HEAD ref remains valid until the next time git fetch is run
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Decentralised workflow (GIT-centric forges)

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Generating patches

• git diff
The basic (legacy) way: use git diff

• git format-patch
The modern way: git format-patch converts you history
(commits) into a series of patches (on file per commit) and it
records the metadata (author name, commit message) 18

18
Note: git format-patch does not preserve merge history & conflicts
resolution. You should only use it when your history is linear.
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Generating patches

git format-patch rev origin[..rev final ]

git format-patch generates patches from revision rev origin to

rev final (or to the current version if not given)

Example:
 
$ git format-patch origin/master
0001-added-foo.patch
0002-removed-bar.patch

 

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Applying patches
git am file1 [ file2 ...]

• git am19 applies a series of patches generated by

git format-patch into the local repository
(each patch produces one commit)

• the authorship of the submitter is preserved20

 
$ git am 0001-added-foo.patch 0002-removed-bar.patch
Applying: added foo
Applying: removed bar
 

19
am originally stands for “apply mailbox”
20
actually GIT distinguishes between the author and the committer of a
revision (usually they refer to the same person, but not when running git am)
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Exercises
1. look up the helloforge project on the istic forge at:
https://gitlab.istic.univ-rennes1.fr/abaire/helloforge
2. clone the repository (click on the Clone button to get the repository url, prefer
using the ssh url rather than https)
3. create one or more commit, then try to push your master branch (note: this
should fail because the master branch is protected)
4. push your branch under a different name, eg:
 
$ git push origin master:my_new_branch_name

 
5. create a merge request for your branch (to merge it into origin/master). You
can do that either in the merge requests page on the forge or by following the
url displayed by the git push command.
6. once your merge request is created, browse its details (discussion, changes, . . . ),
then approve it to have it merged into the master branch.
7. run git pull and check the results in gitk
8. repeat steps 3 to 7, but by publishing your branche in a forked repository (click
on Fork on the project page to create your fork)

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Part 8.
Extras
• Some advices
• Common traps
• Documentation
• Next tutorial

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Some advices (1/2)

• commit as often as you can (keep independent changes in

separate commits)

• run git diff before preparing a commit

• in commit messages, describe the rationale behind of your

changes (it is often more important than the change itself)

• do not forget to run git push

• use a .gitignore file to ignore generated files (*.o, *.a, . . . )

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Some advices (2/2)

• don’t be fully desynchronised → run git pull enough often

to avoid accumulating conflicts

• idem for feature branches

(merge from the mainstream branch enough often)

• when creating complex patches (as an external contributor)

prefer using one branch per patch

• keep a gitk instance open when doing fancy things

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Common traps (1/2)

• git diff without arguments shows the difference with the

index → run git diff HEAD to show the differences with
the last commit

• git reset reverts the index, but keeps the working copy
unchanged
→ do git reset --hard if you need to revert the working
copy too

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Common traps (2/2)

• GIT is not forgiving, do not ignore its warnings and do not use
--force unless you have a clear idea of what you are doing

• GIT’s history is not immutable

• git checkout on an arbitrary commit or a tag (anything

that is not a branch) puts your in “detached HEAD” state.
You can commit, but your history be lost if you don’t create
any branch (or tag) to reference them.

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Detached head state

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Detached head state

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Detached head state

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Detached head state

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Detached head state

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Other useful utility commands

• git gc → garbage collector (run it when the /.git/
directory takes too much space)

• git stash → save/restore the state of the working copy and

index (useful when in need to commit an urgent fix)

• git clean → clean the working tree ( you must ensure

that all your code is committed)

• git bisect → locating which commit introduced a bug

• git cherry-pick → merging a single commit

• git revert → cancelling a previous commit

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Further documentation
• man git cmd (tough & exhaustive)
• man gitglossary
• The Git book
http://git-scm.com/book

• The Git community book

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7502572/The-Git-Community-Book

• Github learning materials

http://learn.github.com/

• Atlassian learning materials

https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorial

https://www.atlassian.com/git/workflows

• Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git (May 2007)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8

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