Git commands and tips, I use frequently

Part- 1

I have been using Git for almost four years and kept my day to day Git commands and tips in a document to just copy and use as and when required.

I just want to share my compilation of git commands and tips, I use in my day to day workflow. Hope it will help.

Git Aliases

This is not a command but if you are tired of writing a full git command, Git Aliases can make your life very easy. You can easily setup an alias for any Git Command. Treat it as a git shortcut.

For example:

Instead of “git checkout”, I use “git co”. So how you can set it up ?

Here we go, just write below line in your teminal

$ git config --global alias.co checkout

Here

$ git config --global telling git to update global configuration file

alias.co defining your alias name

checkout is your main git command

You can set as many as aliases based on your requirements. I generally use for check last commit, complex logging, checking differences visually etc.

If you want to read more about aliases, please click here.

Advance Git Commands

Other than aliases here are some git commands, I use in my day to day activities. Today I will focus on viewing the commit history.

Have you used “git log”. What a pretty bored B/W output.

Instead of a black and white log of your commits, use below for a colourful, more visible log

$ git log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit

The colorful git log

Above command seems very complex. Isn’t it?

Why don’t you use git alias for that. Copy and paste below line in your teminal

git config --global alias.lg "log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit"

Woo hoo…now, what you all need to do is, use “git lg” to see your colourful logs

git lg

If you want to see, the log of lines changed, jus use

git lg -p

You can use other log options along with above alias.

For example:

-p

Show the patch introduced with each commit.

--stat

Show statistics for files modified in each commit.

--shortstat

Display only the changed/insertions/deletions line from the — stat command.

--name-only

Show the list of files modified after the commit information.

--name-status

Show the list of files affected with added/modified/deleted information as well.

--abbrev-commit

Show only the first few characters of the SHA-1 checksum instead of all 40.

--relative-date

Display the date in a relative format (for example, “2 weeks ago”) instead of using the full date format.

--graph

Display an ASCII graph of the branch and merge history beside the log output.

--pretty

Show commits in an alternate format. Options include oneline, short, full, fuller, and format (where you specify your own format).

--oneline

Shorthand for --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit used together.

You can read more about git logging by clicking at below reference.

Reference: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Viewing-the-Commit-History

Thats it for today. I will share some more useful git commands in this series.

Till then, have a great weekend.