Git Tips

Git is the version control tool used for this project. As not everyone will be familiar with it, this Wiki page features some handy beginner tips; there is loads of further information available all over the Web.

Terminology

Term	Definition
Working/local copy	The copy of the repo. that you have on your local machine
Remote/origin copy	The copy of the repo. on GitHub
Branch	A copy of the codebase used for development
main	The primary branch of the codebase - code cannot be committed directly
Pull request	A request to merge the code in a given branch with (usually) main
Checking out	Switching your local copy to a given branch
Staging	A modified file is staged before committing

Getting Started

1. Install Git (obviously)
2. Clone the repo. (git clone [email protected]:markcheret/footnotes.git)
3. View the available branches (git branch)
4. Set your user details:
   • git config --global user.name "John Doe" and git config --global user.email [email protected]
   • if you want to use a local username/email that is different to your global one, drop the --global option
5. TODO: Add SVN details to your Git config

Workflow

More information is available in the Contributing guidelines.

1. Update your local copy (git pull)
2. Make a branch (git checkout -b <branch name>)
   • the -b flag creates a new branch, rather than checking out an existing one
3. Make your edits
4. View the edited files (git status)
5. View your changes (git diff <file(s)>)
   • changes can be reverted (git restore <file(s)>)
6. Stage the file(s) (git add <file(s)>)
   • staged files can be un-staged (git restore --staged <file(s)>)
7. Commit the staged files (git commit -m "<message>")
   • leave off the second double-quotes to write a multi-line commit message
     • be careful using certain punctuation when doing this (e.g. backticks)
   • or, leave off the (-m "<message>") entirely to write your commit message in a text editor
   • or, use composer commit to use Commitizen
   • if you haven't pushed them, commits can be undone (git reset --soft HEAD~<num of commits to undo>)
8. Once you're ready, push your local commits (git push)
   • for the first commit on a new branch, use (git push -u origin <branch>)

Branches

1. You can delete local branches when you are done with them (git branch -d <branch name>)
2. You can also update your refs to reflect any remote branches that have been deleted (git fetch --prune)
3. You can view all branches that you have a local copy of (git branch)
4. You can also view ALL branches, including those only on the remote (git branch -a)

Rewriting history

NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING, DO NOT MESS AROUND WITH THE GIT HISTORY

• Splitting commits
• More detailed rewriting info

Miscellaneous

• Fixing Git Bash autocompletion