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Sometimes you have a project or even just a single file in a folder where you want to keep track of different versions. You want to make new versions but be able to rewind time to before you made those versions, or you wanna get suggestions for new versions from other people.
If you've been blessed enough to not even have to learn what files and folders are yet, you're not gonna be able to follow along, but the good news is that you don't need git. Files and folders are primitive beasts and git makes them less bad.
A ârepoâ (short for ârepositoryâ) is the nickname for a folder that git can help you store different versions of. Itâs not a good idea to have more than one repo per folder so make separate folders for the separate repos.
To create a repo in a folder from the command line, write git init or if you are using magit you can call magit-init from Emacs.
The nickname for the current state of that folder, however chaotic or neat it might be, with all your scrap files and junk that you have in that folder, is called âthe working treeâ.
Git uses something called a âstaging areaâ a.k.a. the index. Think of git as a sort of camera that can store a version of your files, and the staging area is where you select whatâs gonna be there.
Itâs like when Iâm working on a physical project at my desk, I have all sorts of scrap paper and eraser crumbs, I donât wanna send that to the vault. Instead, I select the core and blessed parts and just take a snapshot of those documents. The working tree is the entire desk of tea stains and textbooks, the staging area is the part thatâs under the camera.
From the command line, write git add followed by the filenames you want to copy to the staging area. Or, from the magit-status view, you can select files and mark the for staging with the s key. This is one thing that Magit is better at: from the command line, you can only stage entire files, while from Magit, you can stage parts; you can stage some changes while leaving others for later.
Each of these snapshots or versions are called a âcommitâ in git. A commit contains three things:
This is why I think git feels like a bowl of paper clips. Paper clips can be used as bookmarks, and they can also be linked together to form chains or even branching chains. You have âem in a bowl and some are linked up and some are loose rattling around in there.
You can write what ever you want in the commit message but git users in the English-speaking world has come together in sort of a compromise how they want them to be written with these three rules:
Do not shoot the messenger if you think these rules are dumb. They are, and the machine isnât enforcing them, but theyâll help you get along with other git users if youâre sending versions to each other.
To make a commit is also called to commit. So you commit a commit. Language is dumb. Committing means copying whatâs in the staging area into a specific commit.
To commit from the command line, type git commit. Itâll start $EDITOR for the commit message. Or, from the magit-status view, press c on your staging area to start the commit process (a normal, vanilla commit is another c, so `cc`).
The names for the commits are autogenerated from whatâs in them. For example, the first two commits in the repo for this text got named b7efb1f3aae37b43e7764e8af97302e3853429ea and 4b18c5942c48e252200fab0e2466a94777984993. The data git uses to keep track of them is stored in .git/objects and these are their filenames.
Git knows what you mean if you just use the first few letters in one of these commit names. For the first several years of using git, I didnât know that, so I would copy and paste the entire long name. But thatâs not necessary, git knows whatâs up.
I use the word âcopyâ a lot (copying from the working tree into the staging area, and from the staging area into a specific commit, but donât worry, git knows how to store these copies efficiently without waste, especially for text files.
Magit and other tools lets you view whatâs different between the commits, whatâs changed, and thatâs great, so itâs easy to get the misconception that git commits are just a set of changes (people often refer to a set of changes as a âpatchâ), but donât get the wrong idea. A commit is not a patch.
Itâs better to think of git as storing specific versions, that a commit contains a version (and a message and a pointer to the previous commit), than to think of it as storing changes. This confused me at first, since I used patch-based systems before git. A commit is a version of the files, and a link to a previous commit.
I keep repeating that âcommits contain a link to the previous commitâ bit so you can probably tell that thatâs important.
Itâs not just a linear timeline. There can exist more than one commit succeeding the same predecessor. Just like paperclip chains. Going backwards from a particular commit, thatâs linear. It points to itâs predecessor which points to its predecessor and so on, all the way back to init.
You can view the linear list of commits going from your current commit and stretching backwards from the command line by typing git log, or at the bottom of the magit-status view. You can see other branching paths too with some of the options to git log, refer to the docs for details.â„
Those unreadable jumble-of-letters-and-numbers names are not random. Theyâre autogenerated from the contents of the commit. If you wanted to have a similar commit but based on a different predecessor, itâll get a different letters-and-numbers name. These names are each called a âhashâ.
There are three other ways to refer to a commit.
If there is a commit that you think is especially important, like âThis is version 1 of my awesome projectâ, you can create a tag to refer to that particular commit.
To make a tag from the command line, type git tag followed by the what you wanna call the tag and the first few letters of the commitâs name. For example, git tag the-wonderful-paragraphs b7efb. Or from the magit-status view, press t on that commit among the commits at the bottom of the view.
Use a tag when you want it to point to the same commit forever and ever.
A branch is a movable name or label. I thought branches were confusing at first until I realized that they were nothing more than names for commits. So when I say âa branchâ, I just mean this type of a name.
For example, the repo Iâm using for this text has a branch âmainâ. It is just a name, âmainâ, that git knows is currently pointing to 4b18 (at the time that Iâm writing this sentence). But I can change it to point to another commit if I want to, unlike tags.
Git will even move that name for me automatically if I make a new commit that points to 4b18. Iâll go ahead and do that now. OK, Iâm back. I made a new commit, it got named a052, and âmainâ automatically got moved to point to it.
So if your mind was spinning when you found out that commits can have more than one successor, now you know that branches can be used to keep track of that.
Git uses this metaphor of âchecking outâ a commit, not like checking out hot guys but more like when you get back your coat after checking it in at a nightclub.
Checking out a commit will overwrite those particular files with the versions of the files that are in that commit, but will leave your untracked scrap files alone.
The name âHEADâ refers to the current commit. The commit that you most recently checked out or made (which ever happened last). You can also use HEAD^ to refer to the commit before that, or HEAD^^ to mean the commit two steps before HEAD and so on.
So checking out just means âgo to a particular repoâ.
Using a branch name when checking out makes that branch keep tracking (i.e. getting updated to point to) new commits as you make them.
Checking out a commit via the hash (the jumbled-letters commit name) can lead to whatâs called a âdetached headâ.
Thatâs not dangerous, it just means that the head commit doesnât have a branch name attached to it.
If you hate the head commit and want to throw those changes away and go back to a branch, just check out that branch. For example, if your branch is âmainâ, then type git checkout main.
If you love the head commit, or commits plural, maybe youâve made several commits but then you realize that they havenât been tracked by the branch you want, you can set that branch to point to the head commit by typing git checkout -B main HEAD at the command line.
If, through shenanigans and bad choices, some of those paperclips in the bowl have become loose, you can find them by typing git reflog at the command line. Then you can check them out or cherry pick from them.
A whole separate copy of the repo in another folder, thatâs called a âforkâ. On your own computer you can make forks by just copying the repo folder in a file manager. Each fork (copy) is its own repo.
To get copies (forks) of repos over the internet, you can call git clone followed by the URL from the command line, or, if youâre using Magit, you can call magit-clone from Emacs.
While git does have a lot of tools to rewrite the commit history, to reorder commits, to change the wordings of messages or even in the files retroactivelyâsay youâve made a typo early on, and then made other commitsâyou can then retroactively make it so that that typo never happened. Git, the ultimate time machine.
However, youâre not supposed to rewrite history that youâve published, that someone else has accessed and forked or fetched from. That can lead to trouble. Even a simple amend (as seen below) counts as troublesome rewriting if done on a published repo. But on your own private repos, especially repos that you are gonna publish or send to other people later, history rewriting can be awesome because what you send will be neater.
Remember that the hash names are autogenerated from the commit, including the contents of the version, the previous commit, and the message, so if any of those change, so will the hash.
Rewriting the most recent commit is the easiest. Itâs as simple as adding the --amend flag to git commit from the command line, or from the magit-status view, where youâd normally hit cc for a vanilla commit, you use ca.
There are two ways to rewrite further back. One is to just rewind your commits with git reset --soft or git reset --mixed and then just make new commits with the code thatâs in your working tree. Resetting --hard is not good for this particular purpose (itâs actually super dangerous and you can lose work) since that would throw away the changes in the working tree, and checking out an older version would have the same problem.
The other way is to use rebase. If youâre using the command line tools, start by typing git rebase -i followed by oldest commit involved, which can be a hash or something like HEAD^^
Thatâll open a list in your editor. Itâs a magical text file, even if youâre using vanilla Notepad, because here, you can reorder those commits just by changing the order of the lines. Unlike git log, this list goes oldest on top, newest at the bottom.
Removing a line means that the commit will be lost (pretty dangerous).
Also, you see that thereâs the word âpickâ by each commit. Pick means include it. You can change âpickâ to other commands: edit means include but git will give you a chance to make changes to that commit and squash means to join that commit into the previous commit (and you can have several squash commits in a row if you want to join a bunch at once).
So again, just to be super clear: if youâve made a bunch of changes and youâre happy with what youâve got, you just wish your history looked a little neater and you decided to do a rebase to join some of those commits together, use squash instad of delete the lines.
As an example of that, if you have commits A (oldest) then B then C (newest), but you think B is a little bit embarrassing because C got you where you wanted: then mark C as squash (to join it and B together) instead of just removing B, which might bork up C.
Once you save and close that file, follow the instructions git is giving you on the command line.
You can start a similar -i style rebase from the magit-status view by pressing ri down on the oldest commit that you do want to include (unlike when you call git rebase -i from the command line, where you say the oldest commit younwant to leave in place). Magit also has a lot of other, more convenient history rewriting tools. For example, you can commit new changes in your working tree straight into an older commit by committing with cF instead of cc.
So, just as a liâl reminder: do not rewrite repos youâve already published, and be aware that the hashes are gonna change.
This is pretty clutch when collaborating.
There are three ways you can get changes from other people. One is if they send you patches and you just apply the patches. Git even has a tool that helps sending patches this way:
This is one time youâre actually working with change sets (a.k.a. patches) and not just working with different versions.
The other two ways both involve using git itself to fetching from another fork.
Those two ways are called merging and rebasing.
Iâve worked on one project where the policy was to always use rebasing, and Iâve worked on other projects where the policy was to always use merging; while I think merging is more fun, ultimately youâve got to get along with your fellow devs so Iâll try to explain both.
git fetch just grabs the other commits and puts them in your âpaperclip bowlâ. See more about fetching in the âPushing and fetchingâ section below.
git pull is a shorthand for git fetch; git merge, while git pull
--rebase is shorthand for git fetch; git rebase.
If you havenât made any local changes, youâre just behind, and you just want to catch up, then merging and rebasing is the same (as long as merging has the âfast forwardâ option turned on, which is the default).
Merging and rebasing are different when you have made some changes and your friend have made other changes and you now wanna integrate them. You might need to have to resolve some differences by hand by editing the files, that problem is the same whether you use rebase or merge.
Merging creates a new commit that actually has two ancestors. Fun fun fun.â„
Rebasing rewrites your history as if you had made your commits after the other personâs commits. As with all history rewriting (see above), this changes the hashes, and also youâre not supposed to do any rewriting on publically accessible repos, repos that youâve published or pushed.
Rebasing is popular because it makes your changes all sit on top of theirs, which then makes it easier for them to add them back.
Your friends just need access to the folder somehow. If you have access to web hosting, Iâve already written a separate post on how to serve up git repos there:
Both fetching and pushing involve remotesâa remote is just a name for a fork that git knows about. A remote is set automatically when you clone a remote repo, but you can add more remotes by using git
remote add from the command line, or by calling magit-remote from Emacs..
Remotes doesnât have to be over the internet, they can be on your own hard drive too.
When working with remotes, I sometimes struggle to remember to prefix the remote branches with the remote name. For example, if I have a remote named origin, and I want to refer to that remoteâs âmainâ branch, that branch is origin/main while my local main is just main.
You can only push to remotes that you have write access to. If you donât, you need to ask the other person to pull from you or you can send patches to them.