Git Cheatsheet

Posted on Mar 7th, 2016, updated on Oct 9th, 2017

Git Resources

Awesome Git Aliases

git config --global alias.aliases "\!git config --list | grep alias | sed -e 's/alias\.//' | sed -e $'s/=/\t/'"
git config --global alias.b "branch"
git config --global alias.ba "branch -a"
git config --global alias.bd "branch -d"
git config --global alias.bda "\!git branch | grep -v master | grep -v '*' | xargs git branch -d"
git config --global alias.brda "\!git branch --remotes --merged master | grep -v master | sed -e 's/\// :/' | xargs -n2 git push"
git config --global alias.cam "commit -am"
git config --global alias.cm "commit -m"
git config --global alias.ch "checkout"
git config --global alias.chb "checkout -b"
git config --global alias.d "diff"
git config --global alias.ds "diff --staged"
git config --global alias.lga "log --all --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(auto)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit"
git config --global alias.pr "pull --rebase"
git config --global alias.restore "\!git checkout \$(git rev-list -n 1 HEAD -- \"\$1\")^ -- \"\$1\""
git config --global alias.rpo "remote prune origin"
git config --global alias.s "status -bsu"

Super Git Scripts

# Find remote branches that have not had activity for a specified amount of time.
for k in $(git branch --remotes); do 
  if [ -z "$(git log -1 --after='24 months ago' $k)" ]; then
    echo $k
  fi
done

Global Configuration Preferences

echo ".idea/" >> $HOME/.gitignore
git config --global core.excludesfile $HOME/.gitignore
git config --global core.autocrlf true
git config --global core.safecrlf false
git config --global push.default simple
git config --global color.ui true

Git Recipes

Now what exactly depends on this package...?

When you find yourself wondering how a downstream dependency fits into the big picture, this command can show you the dependency tree:

npm ls | grep -C 20 "react"

Hatin' on merge commits

Don't you just hate those nasty merge commits cluttering up your commit history? This recipe is just the trick for merging a local branch into master without generating a merge commit.

DO NOT use this recipe if your branch has been pushed to a remote!

git checkout my-branch
git rebase master
git checkout master
git merge my-branch

I take it back!

Sometimes, don't you wish you could just go back in time and do things a little bit differently? Well, with git you can.

Here are the git commands to use for the three different scenarios you'll face when wanting to undo what's been done.

Catching up

If you've forked a repo and then find yourself wanting to sync up with the latest changes in the original repo, this is the recipe for you.

This recipe makes the assumption that your repo follows the standard conventions of naming the original remote the upstream remote.

git fetch upstream
git checkout master
git merge upstream/master

Special Git Files

.gitignore

The .gitignore file should be at the root of the project directory. This file tells git to ignore, or not track, the specified files.

See the docs for a complete reference: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore

# Lines that start with a pound sign (#) are comments
# Blank lines are not interpreted

# Ignore specific files
.env
secrets.txt

# Ignore entire folders
node_modules
bin
log

# Patterns are supported
*.log
**/*.log

# Negate a previous pattern to NOT ignore a file
!critical.log

.gitattributes

The .gitattributes file should be at the root of the project directory. This file tells git how to handle certain files or file types.

See the docs for a complete reference: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes

The -text option tells git not to normalize the line endings on that file. In other words, leave this file alone.

*.txt       text
*.vcproj    eol=crlf
*.sh        eol=lf
*.jpg       -text

Git Commands

When working with git commands, options can be combined. For example, git commit -am is the same as git commit -a -m and git status -su is the same as git status -s -u.

git help

git config

For a large, but not necessarily complete, list of configuration variables, see http://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#_variables

git init

git status

git diff

When viewing the diff in a bash console, hit q to exit.

git checkout

git add

git commit

git tag

git blame

git reset

Never use the reset command to undo changes that have been pushed! If changes have been pushed, use git revert to undo commits.

git revert

Use git revert if the commit to undo has been pushed to a remote.

git log

When viewing the diff in a bash console, hit q to exit.

git remote

There are a couple of remote naming conventions:

1. origin is the name of the remote that is the primary owner of the repository.
2. upstream is the name of the original remote from which a repository was forked.

git push

git fetch

git pull

git clone

git branch

git merge

git rebase

Rebase moves commits made on the current branch since the branch was made into a temporary area, does a fast-forward merge of new commits in the original branch into the current branch, and then replays the current branch commits (which creates new commit hashes in the process). This effectively makes it as if you had started the branch at the current state of the original branch. This is a useful technique for not creating automatic 'merge commits' that would get created using git merge.

DO NOT rebase a branch that has been pushed to a remote.

git rm

git clean

git stash

Stashing files is particularly useful for when you have changes in the working directory that you aren't ready to commit, but you need to pull or push or something. Stashing the files will preserve your changes in the stashed copy.

Most common usage is git stash, [do some stuff], git stash pop