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How to learn Git in 15 minutes? List of most basic git commands

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Every dev has a working copy of the code and full change history on their local machine

Here are some most important and useful GIT commands that will surely help you.

Git Commands:

  • This command sets the author name and email address respectively to be used with your commits.
$ git config –global user.name "[name]" 
$ git config –global user.email "[email address]"
  • This command is used to start new repository.
$ git init [repository name]
  • This command is used to obtain a repository from an existing URL.
$ git clone [url]  
  • This command records or snapshots the file permanently in the version history.
$ git commit -m "[Type in the commit message]"
  • This command lists all the files that have to be committed.
$ git status 
  • This command shows the metadata and content changes of the specified commit.
$ git show [commit]
  • These commands lists, creates and delete branch respectively.
$ git branch  
$ git branch [branch name]  
$ git branch -d [branch name]  
  • This command is used to connect your local repository to the remote server.
$ git remote add [variable name] [Remote Repo Link]  

  • This command sends the committed changes of master branch to your remote repository.
$ git push [variable name] master  
  • This command sends the branch commits to your remote repository.
$ git push [variable name] [branch]
  • This command pushes all branches to your remote repository.
$ git push –all [variable name]
  • This command deletes a branch on your remote repository.
$ git push [variable name] :[branch name]
  • This command fetches and merges changes on the remote server to your working directory
$ git pull [Repository Link]

If you want more commands with examples, please let us know in the comments below.

More Useful commands:

  • Checks if sha is in production.
$ git tag --contains [sha]
  • Number of commits by author.
$ git shortlog -s --author 'Author Name'
  • List of authors and commits to repository sorted alphabetically.
$ git shortlog -s -n
  • See differences in file before committing / compare recently edited file with its last committed state
$ git diff path/to/file.txt
  • Undo local changes to a file.
$ git checkout -- filename
  • Undo/revert last commit
git revert HEAD^
  • Remove last commit from history (WITHOUT keeping changes)
$ git reset --hard HEAD~
  • Remove last commit from history (WITH keeping changes)
$ git reset HEAD~
  • Shows number of lines added or removed from repository by an author since some time in the past.
$ git log --author="Author name" --pretty=tformat: --numstat --since=month | awk '{ add += $1; subs += $2; loc += $1 - $2 } END { printf "added lines: %s, removed lines: %s, total lines: %s\n", add, subs, loc }'

referenceS:

https://gist.github.com/davfre/8313299#undoing-previous-actions

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8903953/how-to-revert-last-commit-and-remove-it-from-history

https://github.com/bpassos/git-commands#committing-files

Author: Harshvardhan Malpani

PHP Developer based in New Delhi, India. Working as a freelance web developer providing server deployment, website development and maintenance services.

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