Introduction

This MindMap portray the most commonly used git commands. Commands are grouped together according to functions they performed. Brief description of each command are written under the comment sections and can be viewed using xmind software.

• This MindMap is work in progress and I will be updating it to include more commands and scenario.
• To download, visit https://github.com/adinanta/git-cheat-sheet/raw/master/git.xmind
• To open this MindMap, please download xmind at http://www.xmind.net/download
• It would be appreciated if anyone is willing to contribute some updates to this MindMap. If you want to contribute, please fork my repository at https://github.com/adinanta/git-cheat-sheet.git and send me Pull Request.

Git command MindMaps

Below are brief explanations of each commands group by their functions

Local Git

Create git repository

Initialize folder to be git repository

git init

Check Status of git repository. Perform this task to see if there is any changes to files or folder that have not been added to staging area or that have not been committed

git status

Track Changes

add file called file_name to be tracked into git staging area. This has to be done before commit the changes

git add file_name

add every files or folders that have changed within the git folder to staging area

git add .

add any untracked files including files above the current directory to staging area

git add --all

commit changes that have are already been put in the staging area. git will open VI editor for writing commit messages

git commit

commit changes that have are already been put in the staging area where commit messages are set along with the command

git commit -m 'my commit'

view history of commits in detailed format

git log

view history of commits in short format

git log --oneline

view history of commits from all branches including master branch in short format

git log --oneline --all

view history of commits from all branches and organize them with their associated branches. This view enable us to see which commit from which branch

git log --oneline --all --decorate --graph

look at the differences between original files within the last commits and files that have changes within the working directory that have not been commited

git diff

look at the differences between original files within the last commits and files that have changes and already added to staging area

git diff --staged

look at the differences between original files within the last commits and files that are stored 2 previous commits

git diff HEAD~2

look at the differences between original files within the last commits and files that are stored in commits identified by its hash id. These commits IDs can be retrieved through ‘git log –oneline’

git diff hash_id

Revert Changes

revert file called file_name to previous version stored in commit_hash_id. To see all version of commit_hash_id, use ‘git log –oneline’. After this revert, previous file_name will be put in the staging area ready for the next commit. If further editing is required for this reverted file, move it to the working directory by issuing command ‘git reset HEAD file_name’. Once editing completed, add file_name to the stanging area for further commit by issuing ‘git add . ‘

git checkout commit_hash_id file_name

Discard changes of file_name in the working directory. After executing this command, the version of the file_name will go back the last known state or to the last commit

git checkout -- file_name

move file_name from staging area to working area for further editing. Once edit has been completed, the file can then be re-added to staging area for final commit. When we revert file_name from previous commit using ‘git checkout commit_hash_id file_name’, the file_name will be stored in the staging area.

git reset HEAD file_name

Go the the last known state or to the latest git commit

git checkout master

Go back the last known state or latest commit of a file called file_name We could perform this to recover deleted file called file_name

git checkout master file_name

Turn the entire repository back into the last known commit state. Perform this to go back to the last commit and discard any changes made. When many unwanted changes occurs and these changes have not been commited, we could use this to revert back to the last known good

git reset --hard

restore file_name from commit in the commit_hash_id. To display the available commits, issue command ‘git log –oneline’ once file_name is restored, issue command ‘git checkout – file_name’ so that the restored file is placed into the working directory which will then can be edited.

To save the edited file into a new commit, issue command ‘git add file_name’ and then proceed with “git commit -m ‘new commit’”

git reset commit_hash_id file_name

exclude files or folders

create file called .gitignore

include empty folders

create file called .gitkeep

remote git

Add remote git located at remote_address and give it a short name called origin. Short name can be anything, however by convention it is ussually called origin.

git remote add origin remote_address

For example:

git remote add origin https://github.com/test/abc.git

means that remote name is called origin and point to https address specified at the end of the command

Forking

Add remote git located at remote_address and give it a short name called upstream. When we fork someone else repository for collaboration purpose, we want to make sure that our forked repository are in sync with the repository of the original owner. For example:

1. git remote add upstream https://github.com/budi/abc.git
2. git checkout master
3. git pull upstream master

In the above example, we add remote git called upstream that pointed to original repository that we previously forked. We then checkout to master branch in our local git and then pulling whatever changes that have occured at the original repository that we forked.

git remote add upstream remote_address

Branches

add branch called experimental

git branch experimental

create branch called experiment and then checkout or go to this branch after it has been created

git checkout -b experiment

list all available braches including remote branches

git branch -a

move from master or existing branch to experiment branch Note that experiment is the name of a branch created earlier through ‘git branch experiment’ command

git checkout experiment

delete branch called experiment note that delete cannot be done if we are still on that branch. Perform checkout to another branch before deletion

git branch -d experiment

merge branch experiment to the branch that we are currently checkout. For example: we have two branches called master and experiment. we want changes made in experiment branch to be incorporated into the master branch. To do that, we need to perform the following:

1. checkout to master branch by issuing command ‘git checkout master’
2. From master branch, issue command ‘git merge experiment’
3. changes in experiment branch are successfully merged into master branch

git merge experiment

integrate changes at master branch to whatever branch we are currently in when performing this command. Similar to git merge, rebase integrate changes from one branch to the other except that after rebase operation, the original branch will include commit structure from the branch that perform rebase.

Best practice is not to use rebase when branches are used for collaboration with others

git rebase master

synchronize locally listed remote branch with the existing remote branch. There are cases when branches on the remote git have been deleted and references to those branches still exist locally. References to the remote branches can be listed by issuing command ‘git branch -a’

git fetch --prune