See also <<git-quick-start>> for a brief overview of git commands,
without any explanation.
-Also, see <<todo>> for ways that you can help make this manual more
+Finally, see <<todo>> for ways that you can help make this manual more
complete.
commits reachable from some head but not from any tag in the repository:
-------------------------------------------------
-$ gitk ($ git show-ref --heads ) --not $( git show-ref --tags )
+$ gitk $( git show-ref --heads ) --not $( git show-ref --tags )
-------------------------------------------------
(See gitlink:git-rev-parse[1] for explanations of commit-selecting
-------------------------------------------------
will use HEAD to produce a tar archive in which each filename is
-preceded by "prefix/".
+preceded by "project/".
If you're releasing a new version of a software project, you may want
to simultaneously make a changelog to include in the release
and then he just cut-and-pastes the output commands after verifying that
they look OK.
+[[Finding-comments-with-given-content]]
+Finding commits referencing a file with given content
+-----------------------------------------------------
+
+Somebody hands you a copy of a file, and asks which commits modified a
+file such that it contained the given content either before or after the
+commit. You can find out with this:
+
+-------------------------------------------------
+$ git log --raw -r --abbrev=40 --pretty=oneline -- filename |
+ grep -B 1 `git hash-object filename`
+-------------------------------------------------
+
+Figuring out why this works is left as an exercise to the (advanced)
+student. The gitlink:git-log[1], gitlink:git-diff-tree[1], and
+gitlink:git-hash-object[1] man pages may prove helpful.
+
[[Developing-with-git]]
Developing with git
===================
the first line on the Subject line and the rest of the commit in the
body.
+[[ignoring-files]]
+Ignoring files
+--------------
+
+A project will often generate files that you do 'not' want to track with git.
+This typically includes files generated by a build process or temporary
+backup files made by your editor. Of course, 'not' tracking files with git
+is just a matter of 'not' calling "`git add`" on them. But it quickly becomes
+annoying to have these untracked files lying around; e.g. they make
+"`git add .`" and "`git commit -a`" practically useless, and they keep
+showing up in the output of "`git status`", etc.
+
+Git therefore provides "exclude patterns" for telling git which files to
+actively ignore. Exclude patterns are thoroughly explained in the
+gitlink:gitignore[5] manual page, but the heart of the concept is simply
+a list of files which git should ignore. Entries in the list may contain
+globs to specify multiple files, or may be prefixed by "`!`" to
+explicitly include (un-ignore) a previously excluded (ignored) file
+(i.e. later exclude patterns override earlier ones). The following
+example should illustrate such patterns:
+
+-------------------------------------------------
+# Lines starting with '#' are considered comments.
+# Ignore foo.txt.
+foo.txt
+# Ignore (generated) html files,
+*.html
+# except foo.html which is maintained by hand.
+!foo.html
+# Ignore objects and archives.
+*.[oa]
+-------------------------------------------------
+
+The next question is where to put these exclude patterns so that git can
+find them. Git looks for exclude patterns in the following files:
+
+`.gitignore` files in your working tree:::
+ You may store multiple `.gitignore` files at various locations in your
+ working tree. Each `.gitignore` file is applied to the directory where
+ it's located, including its subdirectories. Furthermore, the
+ `.gitignore` files can be tracked like any other files in your working
+ tree; just do a "`git add .gitignore`" and commit. `.gitignore` is
+ therefore the right place to put exclude patterns that are meant to
+ be shared between all project participants, such as build output files
+ (e.g. `\*.o`), etc.
+`.git/info/exclude` in your repo:::
+ Exclude patterns in this file are applied to the working tree as a
+ whole. Since the file is not located in your working tree, it does
+ not follow push/pull/clone like `.gitignore` can do. This is therefore
+ the place to put exclude patterns that are local to your copy of the
+ repo (i.e. 'not' shared between project participants), such as
+ temporary backup files made by your editor (e.g. `\*~`), etc.
+The file specified by the `core.excludesfile` config directive:::
+ By setting the `core.excludesfile` config directive you can tell git
+ where to find more exclude patterns (see gitlink:git-config[1] for
+ more information on configuration options). This config directive
+ can be set in the per-repo `.git/config` file, in which case the
+ exclude patterns will apply to that repo only. Alternatively, you
+ can set the directive in the global `~/.gitconfig` file to apply
+ the exclude pattern to all your git repos. As with the above
+ `.git/info/exclude` (and, indeed, with git config directives in
+ general), this directive does not follow push/pull/clone, but remain
+ local to your repo(s).
+
+[NOTE]
+In addition to the above alternatives, there are git commands that can take
+exclude patterns directly on the command line. See gitlink:git-ls-files[1]
+for an example of this.
+
[[how-to-merge]]
How to merge
------------
-------------------------------------------------
Dangling objects are not a problem. At worst they may take up a little
-extra disk space. They can sometimes provide a last-resort method of
-recovery lost work--see <<dangling-objects>> for details. However, if
-you want, you may remove them with gitlink:git-prune[1] or the --prune
+extra disk space. They can sometimes provide a last-resort method for
+recovering lost work--see <<dangling-objects>> for details. However, if
+you wish, you can remove them with gitlink:git-prune[1] or the --prune
option to gitlink:git-gc[1]:
-------------------------------------------------
that a branch is created:
-------------------------------------------------
-$ git checkout --track -b origin/maint maint
+$ git checkout --track -b maint origin/maint
-------------------------------------------------
In addition to saving you keystrokes, "git pull" also helps you by
If you and the maintainer both have accounts on the same machine, then
you can just pull changes from each other's repositories directly;
-commands that accepts repository URLs as arguments will also accept a
+commands that accept repository URLs as arguments will also accept a
local directory name:
-------------------------------------------------
$ git pull /path/to/other/repository
-------------------------------------------------
+or an ssh url:
+
+-------------------------------------------------
+$ git clone ssh://yourhost/~you/repository
+-------------------------------------------------
+
+For projects with few developers, or for synchronizing a few private
+repositories, this may be all you need.
+
However, the more common way to do this is to maintain a separate public
repository (usually on a different host) for others to pull changes
from. This is usually more convenient, and allows you to cleanly
| they push V
their public repo <------------------- their repo
+We explain how to do this in the following sections.
+
[[setting-up-a-public-repository]]
Setting up a public repository
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
$ git push ssh://yourserver.com/~you/proj.git +master
-------------------------------------------------
+Note that the target of a "push" is normally a
+<<def_bare_repository,bare>> repository. You can also push to a
+repository that has a checked-out working tree, but the working tree
+will not be updated by the push. This may lead to unexpected results if
+the branch you push to is the currently checked-out branch!
+
As with git-fetch, you may also set up configuration options to
save typing; so, for example, after
link:cvs-migration.html[git for CVS users] for instructions on how to
set this up.
+However, while there is nothing wrong with git's support for shared
+repositories, this mode of operation is not generally recommended,
+simply because the mode of collaboration that git supports--by
+exchanging patches and pulling from public repositories--has so many
+advantages over the central shared repository:
+
+ - Git's ability to quickly import and merge patches allows a
+ single maintainer to process incoming changes even at very
+ high rates. And when that becomes too much, git-pull provides
+ an easy way for that maintainer to delegate this job to other
+ maintainers while still allowing optional review of incoming
+ changes.
+ - Since every developer's repository has the same complete copy
+ of the project history, no repository is special, and it is
+ trivial for another developer to take over maintenance of a
+ project, either by mutual agreement, or because a maintainer
+ becomes unresponsive or difficult to work with.
+ - The lack of a central group of "committers" means there is
+ less need for formal decisions about who is "in" and who is
+ "out".
+
[[setting-up-gitweb]]
Allowing web browsing of a repository
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
independently of the contents or the type of the object: all objects can
be validated by verifying that (a) their hashes match the content of the
file and (b) the object successfully inflates to a stream of bytes that
-forms a sequence of <ascii type without space>
+ <space> + <ascii decimal
-size> + <byte\0> + <binary object data>.
+forms a sequence of <ascii type without space>
{plus} <space> {plus} <ascii decimal
+size> {plus} <byte\0> {plus} <binary object data>.
The structured objects can further have their structure and
connectivity to other objects verified. This is generally done with
include::glossary.txt[]
[[git-quick-start]]
-Appendix A: Git Quick Start
-===========================
+Appendix A: Git Quick Reference
+===============================
-This is a quick summary of the major commands; the following chapters
-will explain how these work in more detail.
+This is a quick summary of the major commands; the previous chapters
+explain how these work in more detail.
[[quick-creating-a-new-repository]]
Creating a new repository
allow people to get to important topics without necessarily reading
everything in between.
-Say something about .gitignore.
-
Scan Documentation/ for other stuff left out; in particular:
howto's
some of technical/?
More details on gitweb?
Write a chapter on using plumbing and writing scripts.
+
+Alternates, clone -reference, etc.
+
+git unpack-objects -r for recovery