Introduction

Here are my notes for some of the more commonly used git commands along with initial setup for git in Linux.

Installation

To begin, install as follows for Arch Linux:

# pacman -Syu git

Or

$ yay git

Pacman will include all required depencies.

Initial configuration

First, set your name and email address:

$ git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"
$ git config --global user.email "email@address.com"

Then, set your preferred text editor (if you have one). I use nano:

$ git config --global core.editor "nano"

You can verify the updates with:

$ git config --global core.editor

Alternatively, you can edit the git configuration directly with:

$ git config --global --edit

Store credentials

In 2021, GitHub disabled authentication via password and now requires authentication with a token. The following command sets up the credential helper, where it will store your token in ~/.git-credentials:

$ git config --global credential.helper store

After you log in during a git push with your username and token, the username or email address and token will be stored in the above location.

Note: The token is stored in plain text, so use caution if that is a concern.

Cloning repositories

Repositories can be cloned with the following:

$ git clone https://github.com/<username>/<repository>.git

Updating repositories

The local record of a repository can be updated with the following command:

$ cd <repository>/
$ git pull

Adding, committing, and pushing

Any files or directories that have been added, modified, or removed can be add to the list of changes to be pushed with the following command:

$ git add .

Then committed (staged in preparation to push) with the following command:

$ git commit -am "Add your commit message here"

Note: Without add, commit will handle any changes to files that have been modified or deleted, but will not incorporate any files that have been created.

Then finally pushed:

$ git push

If, for some reason, you would like to reset a commit:

$ git reset

These commands can be chained together with the AND operator:

$ git add . && git commit -am "Add your commit message here" && git push

Stashing changes

If you forget to update a repository before making changes, you can “stash” those changes and then re-apply them after running git pull.

First, stash the changes:

$ git stash

Then, update the local record of the repository:

$ git pull

Finally, re-apply the changes you previously made:

$ git stash apply

This has proven to be very useful for me when I forget to update a repository before making edits to the code.

References

References for git (and used for above):

https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/managing-your-personal-access-tokens
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-First-Time-Git-Setup#_first_time
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Appendix-C%3A-Git-Commands-Setup-and-Config
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Credential-Storage#_credential_caching
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Stashing-and-Cleaning
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-chaining-operators-in-linux/