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
    JavaScript Promise API

    While synchronous code is easier to follow and debug, async is generally better for performance and flexibility. Why "hold up the show" when you can trigger numerous requests at once and then handle them when each is ready?  Promises are becoming a big part of the JavaScript world...

  • By
    Creating Scrolling Parallax Effects with CSS

    Introduction For quite a long time now websites with the so called "parallax" effect have been really popular. In case you have not heard of this effect, it basically includes different layers of images that are moving in different directions or with different speed. This leads to a...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Making the Firefox Logo from HTML

    When each new t-shirt means staving off laundry for yet another day, swag quickly becomes the most coveted perk at any tech company. Mozilla WebDev had pretty much everything going for it: brilliant people, interesting problems, awesome office. Everything except a t-shirt. That had to change. The basic...

  • By
    HTML5’s placeholder Attribute

    HTML5 has introduced many features to the browser;  some HTML-based, some in the form of JavaScript APIs, but all of them useful.  One of my favorites if the introduction of the placeholder attribute to INPUT elements.  The placeholder attribute shows text in a field until the...

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!