Useful & Frequently Used git Commands

This documentation provides a quick setup process of Git and a few useful commands.

✅ Git application setup

• Download git application from https://git-scm.com
• Install it on your computer.
• Open the terminal (Mac) or Poweshell (Windows).
• Once done, run the following command to check the git version.

git --version

or

git -v

👉 Output

✅ Setup git user name and email

The following commands allow you to set username and email address globally. 🤗

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "Your Email"

You can also set specific username and email address for your current project. 💪

git config user.name "Your Name"
git config user.email "Your Email"

👉 Validate/Check user information

git config --global user.name
git config --global user.email

👉 Initalize a git repository

The following command allows you to initialize a fresh local git repository to your project.

git init

👉 Check git status

The following command will display the current status of the added/updated/deleted files.

git status

👉 git push & pull commands

git add -A

git commit -m "your_custom_commit_message_in_here"

git commit -am "your custom_commit_message_in_here"

git remote add origin "git_remote_repository_url"

//set upstream. (rename the remote from origin to upstream)

git remote rename origin upstream

// Using -u, you can set the upstream branch for the current branch. e.g main
git push -u origin main

// Pull any changes from remote main branch
git pull origin main

git clone "git_remote_repository_url"

// Clone a specific branch from a remote repository
// -b means, Gitll will check out the staging branch right after cloning.
git clone -b "staging" "git_remote_repository_url"

git reset "index.html"

// Check current origin
git remote -v

//Set a new origin.
git remote set-url origin "git_remote_repository_url"

✅ Git branch commands

1. List of all branches.

git branch -a

2. Show current branch.

git branch --show-current

3. Create a new branch and switch to that branch

git checkout -b "new_branch_name"

4. Rename current branch.

git branch -m "new_renamed_branch_name"

5. Delete a branch. (locally)

git branch -d "deleted_branch_name"

6. Delete a branch. (remote)

git push origin -d "<BRANCH_NAME>"

7. Switch to a branch.

git checkout "branch_name"

8. Merge a branch.

git merge "branch_name"

✅ Git tag commands.

Using git tag commands you can easiliy mark stable version of a project. It creates an image of your git repository. To tag a branch, you need to checkout a stable branch. e.g main

git checkout branch "main"
git tag v1.0

Add message to the tag

git tag -a v1.0 -m "this is a stable 1.0 version of my project"

Show all the tags

git tag

Push a tag

git push origin v1.0

Push multiple tag

git push origin v1.0 v1.1

Push all tags

git push --tags

Delete a tag (local)

git tag -d v1.0

Delete multiple tag (local)

git tag -d v1.0 v1.1

Delete a tag (remote)

git push origin -d v1.0

✅ Git commit log

Using the following commands, you can check all previous commits hash, commits date, author.

Check all logs

git log

Last 3 git logs

git log -3

Output

git logs in graphical mode

git log --graph

Output

git logs in oneline mode

git log --oneline

Output

Fix fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories issue

• Run the following command. (Check origin name, for mine it's the main)

git pull origin main --allow-unrelated-histories

• After running this code a popup window will appear. Press 'wq' from keyboard.
• It's done. Now you can push your code to the remote repository.

Remove a file/folder from git tracking

git rm -r --cached 'FOLDER_NAME'

Update last git commit message.

If you accidentally added a Git commit message or would like to update the last Git commit message, then use the following command:

git commit --amend -m "Updated commit message"

Bonus Commands For Mac

1. Create a new directory

mkdir YOUR_DIR_NAME

2. Create an empty file.

touch YOUR_FILE_NAME

3. Read A File.

cat YOUR_FILE_NAME

Bonus Commands For Windows

1. Create a directory

mkdir YOUR_DIR_NAME

2. List of folder and files in a directory.

ls YOUR_DIR_NAME

3. Create an empty file.

echo YOUR_FILE_NAME

Acknowledgement

• Md Mahbub Alam Khan

• bluewindlab.net