Power of - (hyphen) and git

Muhammad Umar Khan — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 09:35:57 +0000

The use of - with some git commands can really make our life easy. I am listing down some of the commands with which you can use - and make your life a lot easy.

1. Fetch something from another branch of git

Let's say you have two different git branches in your working directory.

master
develop

You have a file/folder named extras in master branch. Now, you want to have that same file/folder in develop branch as well. There are two different trivial solutions of doing it.

You can merge master into develop
Or you can copy paste that file/folder

But we are very lazy we don't want to merge or copy-paste either.
We have a very useful command for that
Before run this command you should be on the destination branch

git checkout master -- extras

2. Checkout to the previous branch

Let's say your have two branches named:

abc/add-feature1-to-add-accessibility
abc/add-feature2-to-add-scalibility

Let's say, currently, you're on feature1 branch. Then you switch to feature2 branch using git checkout <BRANCH_NAME> command.

Now you want to go back to feature1 branch. Well what you will do is use the same checkout command we used earlier with the feature1 branch name.

But WAIT!!!

There's another way of doing it. Just type the checkout command with - instead of branch name.

git checkout -

And here we go we will simply checkout to the previous branch where we were before checking out to the current branch.

Git bloom

Muhammad Umar Khan — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:35:38 +0000

This post contains the collection of examples of major git cli commands that we normally use in our daily office work. I have grouped them and organised in such a way that it will be easy to remember them and utilise them.

Pictorial representation

Startup

To turn any directory into git repo

git init

After that add remote of any github repo to link your repo to remote
or You can just clone a repo if you have any

git clone <your github repo url>

To view `logs`

git log

To check `status` of tracked / untracked files

git status

Remotes

List down all the remotes information

git remote -vv

Adding a `new remote`

git remote add origin git@github.com:mumarkhan999/css-tricks.git

Edit an `already added remote`

Here origin is the name of the remote that you wanna edit

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:mumarkhan999/elephant-fight-in-flex-layout.git

`Remove` already added origin

You will replace origin with your remote name

git remote remove origin

`Fetch` data from `remote`

git fetch origin

it will bring branch names, meta data e.t.c.

Branching

List down `local branches`

git branch

List down all branches

git branch -a

Creating a branch

git branch my_new_branch
git checkout my_new_branch

Creating and checking out branch in `1 step`

git checkout -b my_new_branch

Creating a branch from `another branch` not from the current one

git checkout -b my_new_branch not_current_branch_name

Checkout to the last branch which you were on `without name`

git checkout -

Print `current branch` name

git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD

Pushing a local branch to a remote branch having different name

git checkout -b my_local_master origin/master
...
git push origin my_local_master:master

You can even push different branch to a different branch on remote

git push origin develop:master

This will make the master on remote to the exact replica of develop from local

`Force` push

git push origin branch_name -f

`Fetch` and `Pull` of branch

fetch will just bring your branch from remote

git fetch origin develop

pull will fetch as well as merge the incoming data into current branch

git pull origin develop

`pull` with default which is `--merge`

If you pull remote changes with the flag --merge, which is also the default, then your local changes are merged with the remote changes. This results in a merge commit that points to the latest local commit and the latest remote commit.

git pull --merge

`pull` with `--rebase`

If you pull remote changes with the flag --rebase, then your local changes are reapplied on top of the remote changes.

git pull --rebase

Deleting multiple git branches using regular expression

You can use the git command as mentioned below to delete multiple git branches at once using regular expression

git branch -D `git branch | grep -i "your regular expression"`

List down all the branches information

git branch -vv

`Rename` current branch

git branch -m new-name

`Rename` if you are on `other branch`

git branch -m old-name new-name

Delete the old-name remote branch and push the new-name local branch

git push origin :old-name new-name

Reset the upstream branch for the new-name local branch

Switch to the branch and then

git push origin -u new-name

`Deleting` a branch

git branch -D branch_name

-D is for forcefully

`Deleting` unnecessary branches of a `remote`

This will list down the branches which are available to be deleted

git remote prune origin --dry-run

This will delete them, it's better that you run both of these commands

git remote prune origin

Bring specific file from `another branch`

Let's say you are on master
You wanna bring specific file from develop

git checkout develop -- lms/djangoapps/courseware/admin.py

Adding

Adding `all`

All the newly created files are untracked one
git doesn't track them
To make them trackable you add them individually

git add new1.txt new2.txt

or

git add -A

or

git add directory/*

Adding only `tracked files`

Now let's say there are two types of files in your working directory
tracked / untracked
You only want to commit tracked one so

git add -u

will do the job

Committing

Amend last commit message

git commit --amend -m "New commit message."

Amend last commit without editing its message

git commit --amend --no-edit

Tagging

Moving git tag to the latest commit

Let's say that you have a branch having three commits. On first commit you have a tag, but you wanna move it to the latest one.

git tag -af <tag_name_on_first_commit>
git push origin --tags -f

After this you may need to update the tag/release description on github.

In the above scenerio we moved the tag to the latest commit means the third one, but it is also possible to move it from first to second commit. You just need to specify the commit hash

git tag -af <tag_name_on_first_commit> <commit_hash_of_second_commit>
git push origin --tags -f

`Fetching` tags from `remote`

git fetch --tags --all

Rebasing

Rebasing with `other branch` e.g. `master`

git rebase master

Rebasing (with only specific range of commits)

git rebase --onto <base_branch> <start_commit_hash> <end_commit_hash>

It will create a commit for you (in deattached state) from which you can create a new branch or whatever you want
you can now rebase your with this commit

Squashing your commits

# Here 4 is the number of commits that you wanna squash
git rebase -i HEAD~4

A file will be opened most probably in vim
Now, leave the first commit with p --> pick option
and change the rest of commits option to s --> squash
Save the file, A new file will open having commit messages
Do what ever you want with the commit messages and save it.

Diff

`Ignoring` files while running git diff command

git diff my_branch_name ':!*.min.js' ':!*.js' ':!*.po' ':!*.underscore'

Taking diff of `two branches`

git diff feature1 feature2

Taking diff of `current branch with another branch`

git diff other_branch_name

Taking diff with `stash`

git diff stash@{0} 
# 0 is the number of stashed changes on the stack

Taking diff with `last commit`

git diff HEAD~1

Taking diff of a `specific file/folder of two different branches`

You need to use relatvie path of the file/folder you wanna compare

git diff first_branch second_branch -- myfile.cs

Reset

Undo the changes of single file from staging and un-staging

git checkout <your_file_name>

Wanna move your file from staged to working directory

git reset file_name

or to move all

git reset

Wanna keep your last committed files (~1) in the working directory but not as committed or staged

git reset HEAD~1

Totally undo all the changes which are in staged or un-staged

git reset --hard

Totally `sync` current branch with other branch

Let's say you are on local_develop
You have done some changes and multiple / single comit
To make local_develop just like origin/develop

git checkout local_develop
git reset --hard origin/develop
# origin is the name of your remote

Stashing

Don't want to commit but `wanna save the changes`

git stash

To take back your `saved changes`

git stash pop

To list down your `saved changes`

git stash list

cherry-picking

Note: Cherry-pick the commits. Don't cherry-pick the merge.

In its most basic form, you only need to provide the SHA identifier of the commit you want to integrate into your current HEAD branch
This way, the specified revision will directly be committed to your currently checked-out branch

git cherry-pick af02e0b

BUT If you would like to make some further modifications, you can also instruct Git to only add the commit's changes to your Working Copy - without directly committing them

git cherry-pick af02e0b --no-commit

DEV Community: Muhammad Umar Khan

Power of - (hyphen) and git

1. Fetch something from another branch of git

2. Checkout to the previous branch

Git bloom

Pictorial representation

Startup

To view logs

To check status of tracked / untracked files

Remotes

List down all the remotes information

Adding a new remote

Edit an already added remote

Remove already added origin

Fetch data from remote

Branching

List down local branches

List down all branches

Creating a branch

Creating and checking out branch in 1 step

Creating a branch from another branch not from the current one

Checkout to the last branch which you were on without name

Print current branch name