Guide for Git

Git Commands

- Command 1: remote

Description

The remote sub-command has 3 useful sub-commands:

1. add
2. remove
3. set-url

The add command fails when name already exists. The set-url command fails when name doesn't exist.

The set-url command is useful in cases you made a typo on the URL of some existing name.

origin is the default name of your remote git, and is selected by default when you run a git push or git pull. This means you're basically running git push origin behind the scenes.

Use Cases

List all remote urls:

git remote -v

Remove a remote by name:

git remote rm origin

Or...

git remote remove origin

Add new remote origin url:
(provide a name & a URL. If name already exists, throws an error)

git remote add origin PASTE_URL_HERE

Update current existing remote origin by name url:
(provide a name & a URL. If name doesn't exist, throws an error)

git remote set-url origin PASTE_URL_HERE

- Command 2: config

Description

You can use the config command to set up things like the user.name, user.email. And why should you care about the user & email? Because without a user & an email you cannot perform commits!

Use Cases

Get current remote origin url:

git config --get remote.origin.url

Get git user name & email:

# - Level 1: Project Level
git config --get user.name
git config --get user.email

# - Level 2: Global Level
git config --global --get user.name
git config --global --get user.email

# - Level 3: System Level
git config --system --get user.name
git config --system --get user.email

Update git user name & email at the project:

git config user.name "Tal Kohavy"
git config user.email talkohavy@gmail.com

In order to set new values use:

# - Level 1: Project Level
git config user.name "Tal Kohavy"
git config user.email "talkohavy@gmail.com"

# - Level 2: Global Level
git config --global user.name "Tal Kohavy"
git config --global user.email "talkohavy@gmail.com"

# - Level 3: System Level
git config --system user.name "Tal Kohavy"
git config --system user.email "talkohavy@gmail.com"

Create an alias for a git command:

git config --global alias.logs "log --graph --oneline --decorate"
git logs

git config --global alias.ck "checkout"
git ck

git config --global alias.pop "stash pop"
git pop

git config --global alias.pop "stash apply"
git apply

git config --global alias.name "rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD"
git name

- Command 3: branch

Use Cases

Delete a local branch:

git branch --delete NAME_OF_BRANCH

caution

You can't delete the branch on which you're current standing on!
Check out from it if necessary.

Delete a remote branch:

git push origin :REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME

Rename a local branch:

git branch -m OLD_BRANCH_NAME NEW_BRANCH_NAME

Or just...

git branch -m NEW_BRANCH_NAME

Rename a remote branch:

Renaming a remote branch is actually a 2-step process. While you can actually rename a remote branch using Github Browser in a 1-step, this is probably not what you want. Because, here is what I'm assuming that happened:

• You gave a wrong name to a local branch.
• You pushed that branch with the wrong name to the remote repo.
• You now want to renamed in both places.

The easiest & fastest way to do that is:

• rename the local branch.
• delete the remote branch.
• push the newly-named local branch to the remote.

Step 1: rename the local branch

git branch -m NEW_BRANCH_NAME

Step 2: delete the remote branch

git push origin :OLD_BRANCH_NAME

Step 3: push the newly-named branch to the remote branch

git push origin NEW_BRANCH_NAME

- Command 4: checkout

Description

checkout has many actions attached to it. Use it carefully.

Use Cases

Reset 1 file:

git checkout HEAD -- src/client.js

Branch out from an old commit

git checkout -B <branch-name> <sha-of-commit>

or...

git checkout -B <branch-name> HEAD~3

- Command 5: clean

Use Cases

Clean reset for all changes:

git clean -df

- Command 6: commit

Use Cases

amend wrong author:

git commit --amend --author "Tal Kohavy <talkohavy@gmail.com>"

- Command 7: filter-branch

Use Cases

amend wrong author on all commits:

git filter-branch --env-filter '
OLD_EMAIL="wrong@mail.com"
NEW_EMAIL="talkohavy@gmail.com"
if [ "$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL" = "$OLD_EMAIL" ]
then
    export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$NEW_EMAIL"
fi
if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" = "$OLD_EMAIL" ]
then
    export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="$NEW_EMAIL"
fi
' --tag-name-filter cat -- --branches --tags

---

All paths to .gitconfig

There are 3 Levels of .gitconfig: project, global & system.
The .gitconfig, on all operating machines, is found at:

# - Project Level
code .git/config

# - Global Level
code ~/.gitconfig

# - System Level (What about windows?)
code /etc/gitconfig

I always use the gitconfig in the global level.
That's where I usually put my "globally" configs.
So like user.name, user.email, all of my aliases, the git-split-diffs, etc.

As of today, here's how my .gitconfig looks:

[alias]
	logs = log --graph --oneline --decorate
	df = diff HEAD
	ck = checkout
	pop = stash pop
	apply = stash apply
	name = rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD
	unstage = restore --staged .
	s = status
	comit = commit
	amend = commit --amend --no-edit
[user]
	name = Tal Kohavy
	email = talkohavy@gmail.com
[core]
	pager = git-split-diffs --color | less -RF

---

Cool diff tool git-split-diffs

Get the the most powerful syntax highlighting git-diff in your terminal. It is GitHub style, with split view (side by side).

npm install -g git-split-diffs

git config --global core.pager "git-split-diffs --color | less -RFX"

Enable scrolling in the terminal:

git config --global core.pager "git-split-diffs --color | less -+LFX"

Narrow terminals:

Split diffs can be hard to read on narrow terminals, so we revert to unified diffs if we cannot fit two lines of min-line-width on screen. This value is configurable:

git config --global split-diffs.min-line-width 40

This defaults to 80, so screens below 160 characters will display unified diffs. Set it to 0 to always show split diffs.