git_manual.md

@author: imruizhang

useful commands

• to see the current status of the files that needed to be commit, push or add... git status
• to view branches git branch the current branch will be highline with an asterisk
• to switch branches git checkout 'branch-name'

Note: branch is quite complicated, not very sure how it works.

• What I knew so far:
  • the changes within the branch would not affect the master branch, but you may need to remove the files when you use git rm --cached 'file name' within the branch, otherwise you cannot switch back to master.
  • when you use git push origin 'branch-name', your changes are only visible under the branch not on the master level.

before uploading changes to github

git commit -a -m 'what-has-changed' or git commit 'file-name' -m 'what-has-changed' if you want to comment the changes differently for each file. if you forgot to use -m 'comments', you will open a commit text editor in your terminal, type your comments and ^KX to save and exit (^KH for help).

to upload changes to github if the changes were made in a branch

• switch to the master branch git checkout master
• pull the changes in case other members changed something (optional) git pull origin master
• merge the changes from your branch git merge 'branch-name'
• push the chagnes to github git push origin master

Updating your fork from original repo to keep up with their changes

• Add remote from original repository in your forked repository (only need to do it once): git remote add upstream git://github.com/ORIGINAL-DEV-USERNAME/REPO-YOU-FORKED-FROM.git
• Usuall update git fetch upstream git pull upstream master

how to delete files from git when they were added to .gitignore later

git rm --cached git ls-files -i --exclude-from=.gitignore git commit -m 'Removed all files that are in the .gitignore' git push origin master