Git Tutorial

Installing Git

Installing Git on Windows

You could either download the executable here, or use winget

If you choose to use winget, install it if you dont already have it through the Microsoft Store

And now run the following command in command prompt or Powershell

winget install --id Git.Git -e --source winget

Installing Git on Mac

Install Homebrew if you don't already have that, paste this into your mac terminal or linux shell prompt

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

And now you can use brew to install git

brew install git

If you wish not to use brew, you can also look at other meathods to install Git on Mac

Installing Git On Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Use the following command in your linux terminal

apt-get install git

For other distibutions of linux, please see install Git on Linux

Git Config

Git configuration allows you to add configuration information (Name and Email) on three levels:

• git config --system sets configuration information for all users of the system
  • Applies to all users and their repositories
• git config --global sets configuration information for current user of the system
  • Applies to currently logged in user and their repositories
  • Usage: When you have
• git config sets configuration information for local project
  • Applied to the current repo on the system

Initializing Git Config

When setting up git config you want to set up two main things, your name and your email address:

git config --global user.name "FirstName LastName"

git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

To link your git activity with your github, add the email address you use for git to your github

You can view current configuration, you can check running the following command:

git config --list

Git Basics

Initializing a New Repository

In order to make a new local repository using git, run the following command once you are in the directory you want to turn into a repository

git init RepoName

this creates a hidden .git configuration directory.

If you make a local repo using git and you wish to host it on github, install gh and then run the following command gh repo create

Clone Existing Repository

Instead of making a new repository, if you want to create a clone of a previously existing repository, use the following command

git clone {link to repo}

For the link after clone, replace that with the link for the github repository you would like to clone

Adding/Removing Tracking Files

Git does not know what files in the directory to track for the next commit, git add allows you to add files to be tracked for the next commit

git add .

The . paramter adds all files that have been modified to be added to the files being tracked. if you wish to add a single file replace the "." in the command above with the path to the file name (ex. git add README.md).

You can stop tracking files by using the following command.

git rm path/to/file

The same "." parameter can be used to stop tracking all the files that are currently being tracked (git rm .)

Check Files Being Tracked

In order to see what files are being currently tracked by git, you may use the following command

git status

This command will only show you what files with changes are being tracked, this will not actually show you the changes. In order to see the changes, you can use the following command

git diff

Commiting Changes

Now that you have added files for git to track, in order to commit the changes (add them as a single update in the version control) you can run the following command.

git commit -m "Description of Change"

Pushing You changes

For now, all of your changes are local, in order to "publish" these changes you must push them to the remote repository. This can be done by doing the following.

git push origin

Branches

Branches in git allow you to split off changes from the main line

Viewing Branches

In order to see all current branches of a repo, you can run the following command

git branch

The "*" in front of the branch name indicates the current branch you are on

Creating New Branches

In order to create a new branch, you can run the following command

git branch NewBranch

Running this command will create a new branch but will not switch to it.

Changing Branches

If you wish to change to another branch, you can use the following command

git checkout NewBranch

Comparing Branches

in order to compare the changes between two branches you can use the following command

git diff master .. NewBranch

Merging Branches

In order to merge a branch, you need to first switch to the ancestor branch (the branch you are trying to merge into, which is usually main or master).

git merge NewBranch

Deleting Branches

You are able to delete branches by using the "-d" tag.

git branch -d NewBranchName

You can only delete after it is fully merged.