checkout

To check out a repo:

git clone git://github.com/leto/parrot.git

There should now be a directory called "parrot" in your current directory.

commit

Next we modify a file so we can commit a change:

echo "Some junk" >> README

To see a list of modifies files:

git status

should produce something like

# On branch master
# Changed but not updated:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#	modified:   README
#

To commit all local changes:

git commit -a -m "I did some stuff"

If you had multiple changed files that you wanted to commit seperately, you would do

git add README
git commit -m "I commit stuff"

LESSON: Git only commits files you have added already. The -a flag lets you be lazy and say "go ahead and add all modified files" when you are commiting.

log

git log -10 to see the commit message and metadata for the last 10 commits.

git log -p to see the commit history as a series of patches .

You can give git log a file name or directory or a branch name. Very useful!

update

The equivalent of "svn up" is

git pull

list branches

To see a list of current local branches:

git branch

To see all local and remote branches:

git branch -a

create a branch

Suppose you want to create a local branch to work on your latest and greatest new feature. To create a new branch and check it out all in one automagical command:

git checkout -b new_branch

If you want to create the branch and check it out seperately (maybe because you want to do something else in between or batch the creation of many branches/etc..)

git branch some_branch

Later on, you can checkout some_branch with:

git checkout some_branch

switching branches

Let's say you are on new_branch but you want to go back to the master branch:

git checkout master

merge

To merge the foobar branch into the current branch:

git merge foobar

praise/blame

Git has everyone's favorite VCS command, blame!

git blame somefile