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Anisha Mohanty
Anisha Mohanty

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Basic git commands

Working with Git on the command line can be messy. To help with that, I have listed together with some basic Git commands, what each one means, and how to use them.

Command: git init

Usage :

Used to create an empty Git repository or reinitialize an existing one. Also, you create a repository within a new directory by specifying the project name.

$ git init 

#initailize empty git repository with a name
$ git init <project-name>

Command: git clone

Usage :

Used to create a local working copy of an existing remote repository.

$ git clone <remote-repository>

Command: git add

Usage :

Adds files in the to the staging area for Git. Before a commit is made to a repository, the file needs to be added to the Git index.

#add all files
$ git add .

#add a specific file:
$ git add <file-name>

#add an entire directory:
$ git add <directory-name>

Command: git rm

Usage :

Remove files from the working tree and from the index.

#remove a file from the working index (cached)
$ git rm --cached <file-name>

#delete a file (force)
$ git rm -f <file-name>

Command: git log

Usage :

Show commit logs.

#show entire git log
$ git log

#show git log based on commit author
$ git log --<author>="Author Name"

Command: git status

Usage :

Show the working tree status.

$ git status

Command: git branch

Usage :

List, create or delete branches.

#create a new branch
$ git branch <branch-name>

#list all remote or local branches
$ git branch -a

#delete a branch
$ git branch -d <branch-name>

Command: git checkout

Usage :

Switch branches or restore working tree files.

#checkout an existing branch
$ git checkout <branch-name>

#checkout and create a new branch 
$ git checkout -b <new-branch>

Command: git commit

Usage :

Record changes to the repository.

#add a commit with a message
$ git commit -m "commit message in quotes"

Command: git merge

Usage :

Join two or more development histories together.

#merge changes into current branch
$ git merge <branch-name>

Command: git fetch

Usage :

Download objects and refs from another repository.

#fetch all of the branches from the repository
$ git fetch <remote-name>

#fetch the specified branch
$ git fetch <remote-name> <branch-name>

Command: git pull

Usage :

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

$ git pull <branch-name> <remote-name>

Command: git push

Usage :

Update remote refs along with associated objects.

$ git push <remote-name> <branch-name>

# push all local branches to a remote repository
$ git push —all

Command: git remote

Usage :

Used to connect a local repository with a remote repository.

#add remote repository
$ git remote <command> <remote-name> <remote-URL>

#list named remote repositories
$ git remote -v

Further Learning

There are plenty of more commands, here are few references that might be useful.

Thanks for reading, I hope you get git done. 🎉

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