Creating Git Aliases

By  on  

I create shortcuts for everything. I create variables which act as text shortcuts, shortcuts in TextMate to generate CSS/JS/HTML, and bash scripts so I don't have to type in the same commands over and over again. So why should version control software be any different? I commit and push religiously so I create Git aliases to save myself a few keystrokes.

Sample Aliases

#make "com" alias for "commit"
git config alias.com commit

#make "co" alias for checkout
git config alias.co checkout

#make "br" alias for branch
git config alias.br branch

# When you want to see just the differences of one function in one file in two different commits
git config alias.funcdiff '!sh -c "git show \"\$1:\$3\" | sed -n \"/^[^ \t].*\$4(/,/^}/p\" > .tmp1 &&
        git show \"\$2:\$3\" | sed -n \"/^[^ \t].*\$4(/,/^}/p\" > .tmp2 &&
        git diff --no-index .tmp1 .tmp2"' -

These are just some sample Git aliases. You can view more detailed (and by detailed I mean brain-numbing) examples of git aliases at the Git Wiki.

Recent Features

  • By
    Detect DOM Node Insertions with JavaScript and CSS Animations

    I work with an awesome cast of developers at Mozilla, and one of them in Daniel Buchner. Daniel's shared with me an awesome strategy for detecting when nodes have been injected into a parent node without using the deprecated DOM Events API.

  • By
    fetch API

    One of the worst kept secrets about AJAX on the web is that the underlying API for it, XMLHttpRequest, wasn't really made for what we've been using it for.  We've done well to create elegant APIs around XHR but we know we can do better.  Our effort to...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Image Data URIs with PHP

    If you troll page markup like me, you've no doubt seen the use of data URI's within image src attributes. Instead of providing a traditional address to the image, the image file data is base64-encoded and stuffed within the src attribute. Doing so saves...

  • By
    Optimize Your Links For Print Using CSS — Show The URL

    When moving around from page to page in your trusty browser, you get the benefit of hovering over links and viewing the link's target URL in the status bar. When it comes to page printouts, however, this obviously isn't an option. Most website printouts...

Discussion

  1. Nice! I use ci for commit though, more like Subversion. I also have di for diff, st for status and sta for stash.

  2. Terry

    I’m trying to get the funcdiff alias created. When I try to call it with something like:

    git funcdiff “rel\path\to\file” functionName
    or
    git funcdiff HEAD~2 HEAD “rel\path\to\file” functionName

    both give me an error like:
    fatal: Path ‘funcitonName’ does not exist in ‘sha1-2’.
    fatal: Invalid object name ‘rel\path\to\file’.

    I’ve Googled everywhere for anyone using this alias to see a sample syntax, but no one has one. Have you used it successfully?

  3. Dan

    You can make aliases for branch name, too. For example:

    git symbolic-ref head HEAD

  4. Peter

    Dan, command

    git symbolic-ref head HEAD

    ruins git repo in windows. Because it overwrites “HEAD” with “head” in “.git” directory

    For ones, that tried this: just rename the file back

  5. Shahzeb

    Very useful, thanks!

  6. Thanks for the commands,
    I need to know how to create an alias for paths.
    For example if I need to write “git push PATH” instead of “git push gitolite@codex…”
    Regards

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!