Doing things with git

Git has become probably the most popular source-control system today, and if you're new to it, or don't use it very often, there are some things you might want to do which seem simple, but you just can't remember or work out the required command.

I think git is an unpleasantly inconsistent collection of tools and commands which disappointingly failed to learn from the disparate and sometimes conflicting options to other command-line utilities (for example, does -n mean "add line numbers to the output" [grep, cat] or does it mean "just do a dummy run; change nothing" [rsync, rename], or does it mean "display IP addresses and port numbers instead of host names and protocol names" [netstat, iptables]?). Linus had the opportunity to create a new family of tools which behaved in a way people could understand and remember, but he probably just never used DEC VMS and therefore didn't realise there was a better way of doing things than how Unix does it.

So, guides like this are necessary. This is a summary of things you are likely to want to do with git, and how to do them, for the times when you can't remember, have never needed to do them before, or are simply baffled by the inconsistency of how git works.

git status

• It’s important to know which branch any edits, git adds, git commits or git pushes are going to affect!

git show --name-only <commit reference>

• Lists the filenames affected by the commit

git show --name-status <commit reference>

• Lists the filenames affected by the commit, and also shows whether they were Added, Modified, Deleted or Renamed (moved)

git show --name-only <commit reference>..

• Lists the filenames affected since the commit

git show --name-status <commit reference>..

• Lists the filenames affected since the commit, and also shows whether they were Added, Modified, Deleted or Renamed (moved)

git log --follow <path to file>

git log <commit reference>..

git log <other branch name>

git show <commit reference>

• There are many options for the git show command, use git help show to find out more
• This command generates essentially the same output as git diff <commit reference 1> <commit reference 2> (see below) when reference 2 immediately precedes reference 1

git diff <commit reference 1> <commit reference 2> <path to file>

or

git diff <commit reference 1>..<commit reference 2> <path to file>

git diff <branch name 1>: <branch name 2>: <path to file>

• This will show the differences in the specified file between the version in branch 1 and the version in branch 2.
• You do not have to have either of these branches currently checked out.

git diff <branch name 1>: <branch name 2>: --name-status

• You do not have to have either of these branches currently checked out.

git show <branch name>:<path to file>

git show <commit reference>:<path to file>

git diff <branch name 1>: <branch name 2>:

git diff <commit reference 1> <commit reference 2>

• This command generates essentially the same output as git show <commit reference 1> (see above) if reference 1 immediately follows reference 2.

git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U

• This will list the files which contain conflicts

git diff --name-status --diff-filter=U

• This will list the files and almost certainly always show U for Updated

git diff --diff-filter=U

• This will show the differences (ie: the areas of conflict) in the files

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