Curriculum

Git

Git Tutorial

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Git and GitHub

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Git Contribute

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Git Advance

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Gilt Undo

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Text lesson

Git Help

If you have trouble remembering commands or their options, you can use Git help.

Here are a couple of ways to use the help command in the command line:

git command --help – Shows all available options for a specific command.
git help --all – Lists all possible commands.

Let’s explore these commands further.

Git -help See Options for a Specific Command

Whenever you need help recalling a specific option for a command, you can use git command –help.

Example

[user@localhost] $

git commit -help

usage: git commit [] [--] ...
      -q, --quiet                    suppress summary after successful commit 
      -v, --verbose                show diff  in commit message template 
Commit message options
         -F, --file           read message  from file 
         --author         override author for commit 
         --date              override date for commit
         -m, --message
                                                             commit message 
-c, --reedit-message 
                                reuse and edit message from  specified commit
 -C, --reuse-message
                                reuse message from specified commit
  --fixup             use autosquash formatted message to fixup specified commit 
--squash            use autosquash formatted message to squash specified commit 
--reset-author            the commit is authored by me now (used with -C/-c/--amend)
 -s, --signoff              add  a Signed-off-by trailer
 -t, --template
                               use specified template file
 -e, --edit                 force edit of commit
 --cleanup         how to strip spaces and #comments from message
  --status                  include status in commit message template
 -S, --gpg-sign[=]
                               GPG sign  commit
 Commit contents options
    -a, --all                commit all changed files 
-i,  --include             add specified files to index for commit
 --interactive            interactively  add files
 -p, --patch              interactively add changes
 -o, --only                commit only  specified files
 -n, --no-verify         bypass pre-commit and commit-msg hooks
  --dry-run               show what would be committed
 --short                    show status concisely 
--branch                  show branch information
 --ahead-behind       compute full ahead/behind values
  --porcelain             machine-readable output
 --long                     show status in long format  (default)
 -z, --null                 terminate entries with NUL
 --amend                  amend previous commit
  --no-post-rewrite    bypass post-rewrite hook
 -u, --untracked-files[=]
                               show  untracked files, optional modes: all, normal, no. (Default: all)
  --pathspec-from-file
                               read pathspec from file
 --pathspec-file-nul    with --pathspec-from-file, pathspec elements are separated with NUL character

Note: You can also use –help instead of -help to access the relevant Git manual page.

Git help –all See All Possible Commands

To display all possible commands, use the git help –all command.

Warning: This will generate a lengthy list of commands.

Example

[user@localhost] $

$ git help –all

See ‘git help ‘ to read about a specific subcommand

Main Porcelain Commands

add Add file contents to the index

am Apply a series of patches from a mailbox

archive Create an archive of files from a named tree

bisect Use binary search to find the commit that introduced a bug

branch List, create, or delete branches

bundle Move objects and refs by archive

checkout Switch branches or restore working tree files

cherry-pick Apply the changes introduced by some existing commits

citool Graphical alternative to git-commit

clean Remove untracked files from the working tree

clone Clone a repository into a new directory

commit Record changes to the repository

describe Give an object a human readable name based on an available ref

diff Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, etc

fetch Download objects and refs from another repository

format-patch Prepare patches for e-mail submission

gc Cleanup unnecessary files and optimize the local repository

gitk The Git repository browser

grep Print lines matching a pattern

gui A portable graphical interface to Git

init Create an empty Git repository or reinitialize an existing one

log Show commit logs

maintenance Run tasks to optimize Git repository data

merge Join two or more development histories together

mv Move or rename a file, a directory, or a symlink

notes Add or inspect object notes

pull Fetch from and integrate with another repository or a local branch

push Update remote refs along with associated objects

range-diff Compare two commit ranges (e.g. two versions of a branch)

rebase Reapply commits on top of another base tip

reset Reset current HEAD to the specified state

restore Restore working tree files

revert Revert some existing commits

rm Remove files from the working tree and from the index

shortlog Summarize ‘git log’ output

show Show various types of objects

sparse-checkout Initialize and modify the sparse-checkout

stash Stash the changes in a dirty working directory away

status Show the working tree status

submodule Initialize, update or inspect submodules

switch Switch branches

tag Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG

worktree Manage multiple working trees

Ancillary Commands / Manipulators

config Get and set repository or global options

fast-export Git data exporter

fast-import Backend for fast Git data importers

filter-branch Rewrite branches

mergetool Run merge conflict resolution tools to resolve merge conflicts

pack-refs Pack heads and tags for efficient repository access

prune Prune all unreachable objects from the object database

reflog Manage reflog information

remote Manage set of tracked repositories

repack Pack unpacked objects in a repository

replace Create, list, delete refs to replace objects

Ancillary Commands / Interrogators

annotate Annotate file lines with commit information

blame Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file

bugreport Collect information for user to file a bug report

count-objects Count unpacked number of objects and their disk consumption

difftool Show changes using common diff tools

fsck Verifies the connectivity and validity of the objects in the database

gitweb Git web interface (web frontend to Git repositories)

help Display help information about Git

instaweb Instantly browse your working repository in gitweb

merge-tree Show three-way merge without touching index

rerere Reuse recorded resolution of conflicted merges

show-branch Show branches and their commits

verify-commit Check the GPG signature of commits

verify-tag Check the GPG signature of tags

whatchanged Show logs with difference each commit introduces

Interacting with Others

archimport Import a GNU Arch repository into Git

cvsexportcommit Export a single commit to a CVS checkout

cvsimport Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate

cvsserver A CVS server emulator for Git

imap-send Send a collection of patches from stdin to an IMAP folder

p4 Import from and submit to Perforce repositories

quiltimport Applies a quilt patchset onto the current branch

request-pull Generates a summary of pending changes

send-email Send a collection of patches as emails

svn Bidirectional operation between a Subversion repository and Git

Low-level Commands / Manipulators

apply Apply a patch to files and/or to the index

checkout-index Copy files from the index to the working tree

commit-graph Write and verify Git commit-graph files

commit-tree Create a new commit object

hash-object Compute object ID and optionally creates a blob from a file

index-pack Build pack index file for an existing packed archive

merge-file Run a three-way file merge

merge-index Run a merge for files needing merging

mktag Creates a tag object

mktree Build a tree-object from ls-tree formatted text

multi-pack-index Write and verify multi-pack-indexes

pack-objects Create a packed archive of objects

prune-packed Remove extra objects that are already in pack files

read-tree Reads tree information into the index

symbolic-ref Read, modify and delete symbolic refs

unpack-objects Unpack objects from a packed archive

update-index Register file contents in the working tree to the index

update-ref Update the object name stored in a ref safely

write-tree Create a tree object from the current index

Low-level Commands / Interrogators

cat-file Provide content or type and size information for repository objects

cherry Find commits yet to be applied to upstream

diff-files Compares files in the working tree and the index

diff-index Compare a tree to the working tree or index

diff-tree Compares the content and mode of blobs found via two tree objects

for-each-ref Output information on each ref

for-each-repo Run a Git command on a list of repositories

get-tar-commit-id Extract commit ID from an archive created using git-archive

ls-files Show information about files in the index and the working tree

ls-remote List references in a remote repository

ls-tree List the contents of a tree object

merge-base Find as good common ancestors as possible for a merge

name-rev Find symbolic names for given revs

pack-redundant Find redundant pack files

rev-list Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order

rev-parse Pick out and massage parameters

show-index Show packed archive index

show-ref List references in a local repository

unpack-file Creates a temporary file with a blob’s contents

var Show a Git logical variable

verify-pack Validate packed Git archive files

Low-level Commands / Syncing Repositories

daemon A really simple server for Git repositories

fetch-pack Receive missing objects from another repository

http-backend Server side implementation of Git over HTTP

send-pack Push objects over Git protocol to another repository

update-server-info Update auxiliary info file to help dumb servers

Low-level Commands / Internal Helpers

check-attr Display gitattributes information

check-ignore Debug gitignore / exclude files

check-mailmap Show canonical names and email addresses of contacts

check-ref-format Ensures that a reference name is well formed

column Display data in columns

credential Retrieve and store user credentials

credential-cache Helper to temporarily store passwords in memory

credential-store Helper to store credentials on disk

fmt-merge-msg Produce a merge commit message

interpret-trailers Add or parse structured information in commit messages

mailinfo Extracts patch and authorship from a single e-mail message

mailsplit Simple UNIX mbox splitter program

merge-one-file The standard helper program to use with git-merge-index

patch-id Compute unique ID for a patch

sh-i18n Git’s i18n setup code for shell scripts

sh-setup Common Git shell script setup code

stripspace Remove unnecessary whitespace

External commands

askyesno

credential-helper-selector

flow

lfs

Note: If you get stuck in the list view, press SHIFT + G to jump to the end of the list, and then press q to exit the view.