Git Commands

Cloning and Existing Repository:

git clone <repository_url> <directory_name>

Configuring git:

git config --global user.name <name>
git config --global user.email <email_address>
git config --global core.editor <editor_name> # prefered editor name eg. vim, nano

# show global configs
git config --global --list
# show local configs
git config --list

Checking the Status of Repository:

git status
git status -s # short status

Tracking New Files:

git add <file_name>

git add -A # add all files
git add . # add all files

Ignoring Files:

# in .gitignore file
# ignore all files with extension .c or .a
*.[ca]
# ignore all files with extension .js or .jsx
*.jsx?
# ignore all files ending with number 0 to 9
*[0-9]
# only ignore the TODO file in the current directory, not subdir/TODO
/TODO
# ignore all files in any directory named build
/build
# ignore doc/notes.txt, but not doc/server/arch.txt
doc/*.txt
# ignore all .pdf files in the doc/ directory and any of its subdirecotries
doc/**/*.pdf
# more gitignore file examples in https://github.com/github/gitignore

Viewing Staged and Unstaged Changes:

git diff # view unstaged changes

git diff --staged # view staged changes
git diff --cached # view staged changes

Committing Changes:

git commit

git commit -m <message>

git commit -a # to also add modified files to commit

Shortcut for Committing Changes:

Two Line Method

git add .

git commit -m <message>

Shortcut Method

Instead of Using two line method you can use this One line Shortcut Method

git commit -am <message>

Removing Files:

git rm <file_name> # remove from both tracked list and directory
git rm --cached <file_name> # removes only from tracked list

Moving Files:

git mv <file_from> <file_to>

Viewing Commit History:

git log

git log -<n> # replace n with any number, shows last n commits

git log -p # shows the difference introduced in each commit
git log --patch # shows the difference introduced in each commit

git log --stat # show abbreviated stats for each commit

# --pretty changes the log output to formats other than the default
# --pretty=oneline prints each commit on a single line
# --pretty=short, --pretty=full, --pretty=fuller shows the output in roughly the same format
# but with less or more information, respectively
git log --pretty=oneline

# --pretty=format lists some of the more usefull specifiers that format takes.
git log --pretty=format:"%h - %an, %ar : %s"

git log --graph # adds a nice little ASCII graph showing branch and merge history
git log --pretty=format:"%h %s" --graph

Useful Specifiers for git log --pretty=format

Specifier	Description of Output
%H	Commit hash
%h	Abbreviated commit hash
%T	Tree hash
%t	Abbreviated tree hash
%P	Parent hashes
%p	Abbreviated parent hashes
%an	Author name
%ae	Author email
%ad	Author date(format respects the --date=option
%ar	Author date, relative
%cn	Committer name
%ce	Committer email
%cd	Committer date
%cr	Committer date, relative
%s	Subject

Common options to git log:

Option	Description
-p or --patch	Show the patch introduced with each commit
--stat	Sho statistics for files modified in each commit
--shortstat	Display only the changed/insertions/deletions line from the --stat command
--name-only	Show the list of files modified after the commit infromation
--name-status	Show the list of files affected with added/modified/deleted information as well
--abbrev-commit	Show only the first few characters of the SHA-1 checksum instead of all 40
--relative-date	Display the date in a relative format instead of using the full date format
--graph	Display an ASCII graph of the branch and merge history beside the log output
--pretty	Show commits in an alternate format. Option values include oneline, short, full, fuller and format
--oneline	Shorthand for --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit used together