Git Quick Reference

This post is part of a collection on Code and Computers.

I use git every day, but there are some things I need to do infrequently enough I often forget how. Here they are for reference. If you're learning git, try an integrated reference first; Git Magic is my favorite.

Always know how to use your equipment.

☙ Undo last commit

For mistakes.

git reset HEAD~1

Please don't try to do this after pushing.

☙ Revert a pushed commit

The goal here is not to pretend a commit never happened, but to record reversing it.

git revert [commit-hash]

From here.

☙ Git Pickaxe

This searches all past commits (including diffs) for the specified string. The -i makes the search case insensitive.

git log -i -S[word]

This will pop up the log of all commits that match, and is useful for tracking down when a variable first or last appeared.

☙ Find when a file was deleted

Where did that config file go?

git rev-list -n 1 HEAD -- [path]

From here.

☙ Make an annotated tag

Used for marking releases.

git tag -a v0.0

This opens an editor and is a good place to put change notes.

☙ Deleting remote tags

I had to do this when I inherited a project with hundreds of tags nobody cared about. This will delete all tags, though by dumping git tag to a file you can of course modify the list manually.

git show-ref --tags -d > old-tags # save them just in case
for tag in $(git tag); do
    git push origin :$tag
    git tag -d $tag
done

With only current tags the release list was useful again.

☙ Tracking a remote branch

For sharing changes.

git checkout --track origin/[branch]

Ψ