Git Cheat Sheet

Its hard to memorize all the important Git commands by heart, so I thought it’s better to keep a personal Git cheat sheet for myself. So I don’t want to Google it every time whenever I need to check some syntax. So here it is.

Git Basics

• Initialize an empty Git repository
  git init

• Create a local copy of a remote repository
  git clone <repo>

• Check status of the files are stages, unstaged, and untracked.
  git status

• Add a file to the staging area.
  git add [file-name.txt]

• Add all new and changed files to the staging area.
  git add -a

• Commit changes.
  git commit -m "[commit message]"

• Remove a file (or folder).
  git rm -r [file-name.txt]

Undoing Changes

• Create new commit that undoes all of the changes made in , then apply it to the current branch.
  git revert <commit>

• Remove from the staging area, but leave the working directory unchanged.
  git reset <file>

• Remove a file (or folder)
  git rm -r [file-name.txt]

Git Config

To set your global username/email configuration:

• Set your username:
  git config --global user.name "FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME"

• Set your email address:
  git config --global user.email "MY_NAME@example.com"

To set repository-specific username/email configuration:

• Set your username:
  git config user.name "first_name last_name"

• Set your email address:
  git config user.email "my_name@example.com"

• To view the repository-specific username/email configuration:
  git config user.name
git config user.email

• Verify your configuration by displaying your configuration file.
  cat .git/config

Sharing & Updating Projects

• Push a branch to your remote repository
  git push origin [branch name]

• Push changes to remote repository (and remember the branch)
  git push -u origin [branch name]

• Push changes to remote repository (remembered branch)
  git push

• Delete a remote branch
  git push origin --delete [branch name]

• Update local repository to the newest commit
  git pull

• Pull changes from remote repository
  git pull origin [branch name]

• Add a remote repository
  git remote add origin ssh://git@github.com/[username]/[repository-name].git

• View a remote repository
  git remote get-url origin

• Set a repository’s origin branch to SSH
  git remote set-url origin ssh://git@github.com/[username]/[repository-name].git

Branching & Merging

• List branches (the asterisk denotes the current branch)
  git branch

• List all branches (local and remote).
  git branch -a

• Create a new branch. git branch [branch name]

• Delete a branch.
  git branch -d [branch name]

• Delete a remote branch.
  git push origin --delete [branch name]

• Create a new branch and switch to it.
  git checkout -b [branch name]

• Clone a remote branch and switch to it.
  git checkout -b [branch name] origin/[branch name]

• Rename a local branch.
  git branch -m [old branch name] [new branch name]

• Switch to a branch.
  git checkout [branch name]

• Switch to the branch last checked out.
  git checkout -

• Discard changes to a file.
  git checkout -- [file-name.txt]

• Merge a branch into the active branch.
  git checkout [branchYouWantToReceiveBranch]
git merge [branchYouWantToMergeIntoBranch]

• Merge a branch into a target branch.
  git merge [source branch] [target branch]

• Stash changes in a dirty working directory.
  git stash

• Remove all stashed entries.
  git stash clear

Inspection & Comparison

• View changes.
  git log

• View changes (detailed).
  git log --summary

• View changes (briefly).
  git log --oneline

• Preview changes before merging.
  git diff [source branch] [target branch]

References:

• How To Use Git: A Reference Guide, an article in Digital Ocean tutorials.