Building Resilient Systems on AWS: Learn how to design and implement a resilient, highly available, fault-tolerant infrastructure on AWS.

Useful Git Commands

By David Walsh on February 15, 2012

I've used git quite a bit but I don't consider myself a git expert, per se. I often find myself looking up the same basic commands so I thought I'd share them there so I'd have a fast reference, and maybe this will help you out too!

Create and Checkout a New Branch

#branches from currently checked out directory
git checkout -b <branchName>

Checkout a Remote Branch

git checkout -b <localBranchName> origin/<remoteBranchName>

Abort Changes of a File

git checkout -- <fileName>

Modify the Previous Commit's Message

git commit --amend

Partial Change Checkin

git add --edit

Undo the Previous Commit

git revert HEAD^

Temporarily Stash Changes, Restore Later

# After changes have been made...
git stash

# Do some other stuff here, like switch branches, merge other changes, etc.

#Re-apply the changes
git stash pop

Delete a Remote Branch

git push origin :<branchName>

Pull in the Latest from a Shared Repository

# Add a remote branch
git remote add <remoteName> <gitAddress>
	# For example:  git remote add lightfaceOfficial git://github.com/darkwing/LightFace.git

# Get changes from that branch
git fetch <remoteName>

Tagging, Deleting, and Pushing Tags

# Create a Tag
git tag <tagName>

# Delete the tag
git tag -d <tagName>

# Push Tags
git push --tags

Who F'd it All Up?

git blame <fileName>

These basic git commands should help you on your way. Have a tip you'd like to share with others? Please share!

Recent Features

By David WalshSeptember 18, 2017
Conquering Impostor Syndrome
Two years ago I documented my struggles with Imposter Syndrome and the response was immense. I received messages of support and commiseration from new web developers, veteran engineers, and even persons of all experience levels in other professions. I've even caught myself reading the post...
By Eduardo BouçasJanuary 5, 2015
Write Simple, Elegant and Maintainable Media Queries with Sass
I spent a few months experimenting with different approaches for writing simple, elegant and maintainable media queries with Sass. Each solution had something that I really liked, but I couldn't find one that covered everything I needed to do, so I ventured into creating my...

Incredible Demos

By Sara SoueidanApril 5, 2015
Sara Soueidan’s Favorite CodePen Demos
A few months ago, Chris Coyier shared his favorite CodePen demos right here on David's blog. A while back David asked me to share some of my favorite pens too, so here are some of the demos that have blown my mind in the past...
By David WalshApril 24, 2008
Assign Anchor IDs Using MooTools 1.2
One of my favorite uses of the MooTools JavaScript library is the SmoothScroll plugin. I use it on my website, my employer's website, and on many customer websites. The best part about the plugin is that it's so easy to implement. I recently ran...

Discussion

Jan Kassens
Fetch from all remote repositories:
git remote update

See a nice ascii graph of your branches:
git log --oneline --graph --all

Arlo Carreon
+1 on the ascii graph. I even make an alias for it.

git config --global alias.timeline "log --oneline --graph --decorate"

So all when i need my ascii graph I just:
git timeline

sanija

git remote update-git log --oneline --graph --all="git config --global alias.timeline "log --oneline --graph --decorate"{git timeline}

Arlo Carreon
+1 on the ascii graph. I even make an alias for it.

git config --global alias.timeline "log --oneline --graph --decorate"

So all when i need my ascii graph I just:

git timeline
Denis S.
check this out “git – the simple guide” by @rogerdudler
http://rogerdudler.github.com/git-guide/index.html
Harry
Hey, just to expand on “undo previous commit”:

git reset --hard HEAD~3

This will revert three commits back.
Okeowo Omololu Remi
tried adapting to command git not to used to it so i settled for SmartGit pending i grasped the whole Git command line thingy
Jan-Marten de Boer
Not sure why this works for you, but I really have to do this to stash:

$ git stash save “The name of the stash”

And then to put it back

$ git stash apply

Or

$ git stash apply “The name of the stash”
arjun
The below cmd is used for search:

grep log –grep=”your search word”
John W
The ASCII timeline (above) can be customised further, to good effect, by using the –format option, e.g. to add time information about the commits (helpful in a timeline!):

git log –graph –all –format=’%h %an %ad – %s’

(or use %ar instead of %ad if you like relative dates)

Mix with other options to suit. Full details of the format option are in the git-log man page (quite far down the page).