Git Cheat Sheet

Basics

Command	Description
git clone <url>	Clone repo from in current directory
git clone <url> new-name	Clone repo from in current directory name sub-dir new-name
git status	Show the current state of the repo, including changed and uncommitted files

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Logging

Command	Description
git log	Output all commit history
git log --oneline	Output all history with short SHA and commit message only
git log --pretty=oneline	Same as above but outputs the full SHA
git log -5	Log 5 most recent commits
git log ref1..ref2	Log commit present in ref2 that don't exist in ref1

Pretty formatting

Set a named pretty format string:

# Outputs with custom colors the author short-date, short sha,
# commit title fixed to 40 characters, and author email
git config pretty.column \
'%C(#e500ff)%as%C(reset) %C(#ffff00)%h%C(reset) %<(40,trunc)%s %C(#00a1ff)%ae%C(reset)'

To use this formatter, specify it by name in the --pretty argument of git log:

git log --pretty=column

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Branching

Command	Description
git branch
git branch -v	List the currently available branches.
git branch <branch name>	Create a new branch from current working tree.
git checkout <branch name>	Switch to a different branch.
git checkout -b <branch name>	Create a new branch and immediately switch to it.
git branch -d <branch name>	Delete a branch (will not delete if it hasn't been merged in)
git branch -D <branch name>	Equivalent to git branch --delete-force
git push -d <remote name> <branch name>	Delete a remote branch
git push <remote name> <branch name>	Push to a remote branch, will publish a new remote branch if one doesn't already exist

Find most recent common ancestor of 2 branches

The git merge-base command can be used to find the point at which 2 branches diverged.

git merge-base branch1 branch2 will output the full SHA of the most recent common ancestor of 2 branches. Use the following to output the commit as a short SHA and commit message.

git log --oneline -1 `git merge-base branch1 branch2`

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Searching

Show files changed between references

git diff-tree ref1..ref2

Use recursive flag, -r, to list files changed in subdirectories.

--name-status flag fill output the name and status (add, remove, modify) of files changed between two references (branch, commit, tag, etc) - Order matters when using --name-status.

--name-only will output only the names of files changed.

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Stashing changes

Command	Description
git stash	Create a stash of the currently modified tracked files and staged changes
git stash save "<message>"	Create an annotated stash with a message
git stash list	List all stashes currently on the stack
git stash apply	Apply the most recently created stash to the currently checked out branch
git stash apply stash@{n}	Apply the stash at position n
git stash pop	Apply the most recently created stash then delete it. (Optional stash@{n} param)
git stash clear	Delete all stashes on the stack
git stash drop	Delete the stash on the top of the stack. (Optional stash@{n} param)

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Tagging

Command	Description
git tag	List all the current tags
git tag -l "<pattern>"	Search for a tag with a wildcard search e.g. v1.8.*
git show-ref --tags	List all tags with the commit they point to
git tag -a <tag> -m "<message>"	Created an annotated tag
git tag -a <tag> -m "<message>" <hash>	Create an annotated tag pointing to a specific hash
git tag <tag>	Create a lightweight tag (does not include tagger info or message)
git push origin <tag>	Publish a tag to remote named origin
git push origin --tags	Publish all tags to remote named origin
git tag --delete <tag>	Delete a local tag
git push origin :<tag>	Delete a remote tag (pushes empty reference to remote tag)
git push --delete origin <tag>	Delete a remote tag, more expressive than above

Remote repositories

Command	Description
git remote -v	List all remote repos and their push/pull URLs
git remote add <remote_name> <url>	Add a new remote repo
git remote set-url <remote_name> <new_url>	Update the URL for a remote repo

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Configuration

Command	Description
git config --list	List all non-default config settings
git config --list --show-origin	List all non-default settings and their file location

.gitconfig

[user]
	name = Bryce Jech
	email = bryce.jech@gmail.com

[credential]
	helper = osxkeychain

[core]
	editor = nvim
	pager = less -FX
	ignorecase = false
	autocrlf = input
	eol = lf

[pager]
	branch = false

[pull]
	rebase = true

[init]
	defaultBranch = main

[pretty]
	col = "%C(#00a1ff)%<(12,trunc)%an%C(reset) %C(#e500ff)%as%C(reset) %C(#ffff00)%h%C(reset) %<(60,trunc)%s"

.gitattributes

As early in the history of a repository as possible (preferably as part of the initial commit) add a .gitattributes file to the repository root directory with the following contents. Setting text=auto for all files is essentially the same as setting core.autocrlf=input in a local/global user config file.

* text=auto

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Uh-oh

Remove all traces of a file from git history

If you've accidentally added a file to the repo that should not be there, e.g. security related files, user names/passwords, etc, and have made several commits since adding the file, the git filter-branch command can be your friend.

git filter-branch --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch <filename>'

The --ignore-unmatch in the inner command means that git won't fail if the given filename is missing from any given change. You can optionally use --tree-filter instead of --index-filter. --index-filter is very similar to --tree-filter except that it does not check out the tree, giving a performance boost.

filter-branch man page

Change author name/email for all commits

git filter-branch -f --env-filter "GIT_AUTHOR_NAME='Bryce Jech'; GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL='bryce@brycejech.com'; GIT_COMMITTER_NAME='Bryce Jech'; GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL='bryce@brycejech.com';" HEAD

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Troubleshooting

Permissions

If getting a 404 when attempting to push to a repo, it may be that you don't have permission or that the repo is simply not configured properly.

If you do not have the ability to use ssh, you can modify the remote reference url to include your username and, optionally, your password. Note that if you must use an @ symbol in your username, it must be URL encoded as %40. All special characters in the username/password string should be safely URL encoded.

git remote set-url origin https://username@github.com/path/to/repo.git

To include your password (not recommended) the command would look like this:

git remote set-url origin https://username:password@github.com/path/to/repo.git