Introduction To GIT

A Brief History of Git

• Linus uses BitKeeper to manage Linux code
• Ran into BitKeeper licensing issue
 Liked functionality
 Looked at CVS as how not to do things
• April 5, 2005 - Linus sends out email showing
first version
• June 15, 2005 - Git used for Linux version
control
 Git is Not an SCM

Never mind merging. It's not an SCM, it's a

distribution and archival mechanism. I bet
you could make a reasonable SCM on top
of it, though. Another way of looking at it is
to say that it's really a content-addressable
filesystem, used to track directory trees.
Linus Torvalds, 7 Apr 2005
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/8/9
 Centralized Version Control
• Traditional version control system
 Server with database
 Clients have a working version
• Examples
 CVS
 Subversion
 Visual Source Safe
• Challenges
 Multi-developer conflicts
 Client/server communication
 Distributed Version Control
• Authoritative server by • Other distributed
convention only systems include
• Every working  Mercurial
checkout is a  BitKeeper
repository  Darcs
• Get version control  Bazaar
even when detached
• Backups are trivial
 Git Advantages
• Resilience
 No one repository has more data than any other
• Speed
 Very fast operations compared to other VCS (I’m looking at you
CVS and Subversion)
• Space
 Compression can be done across repository not just per file
 Minimizes local size as well as push/pull data transfers
• Simplicity
 Object model is very simple
• Large userbase with robust tools
 Some GIT Disadvantages
• Definite learning curve, especially for those used
to centralized systems
 Can sometimes seem overwhelming to learn

• Documentation mostly through man pages

• Windows support can be an issue

 Can use through Cygwin
 Also have the msysgit project
 Git Architecture
• Index
 Stores information about current working directory and changes
made to it
• Object Database
 Blobs (files)
• Stored in .git/objects
• Indexed by unique hash
• All files are stored as blobs
 Trees (directories)
 Commits
• One object for every commit
• Contains hash of parent, name of author, time of commit, and hash
of the current tree
 Tags
 Some Commands
• Getting a Repository • Getting information
 git init  git help
 git clone  git status
 git diff
• Commits  git log
 git add  git show
 git commit
 Our First Git Repository
• mkdir first-git-repo && cd first-
git-repo
• git init
 Creates the basic artifacts in the .git directory
• echo “Hello World” > hello.txt
• git add .
 Adds content to the index
 Index reflects the working version
 Must be run prior to a commit
• git commit -a -m ‘Check in number
one’
 Key Git Files/Directories

• ~/.gitconfig
• .git
 In top level of repository
 Contains all objects, commits, configuration,
for project
 .git/config has project specific configurations
• .gitignore
 Stored in directory for ignoring
 Working With Git
• echo “I love Git” >> hello.txt
• git diff
 Shows changes we have made
• git status
 Shows list of modified files
• git add hello.txt
• git diff
 No changes shown as diff compares to the index
• git diff HEAD
 Now can see the changes in working version
• git status
• git commit -m ‘Second commit’
 Viewing What Has Changed
• git log
 Note the hash code for each commit.
• git show <OBJECT>
 Can use full or shortened hash
• git reflog to see all changes that have
occurred
 Git and Patch files
• git diff HEAD^^
 Show what has changed in last two commits
• git diff HEAD~10..HEAD~2
 Show what changed between 10 commits ago and two
commits ago
• git format-patch HEAD^^..HEAD
 Will create individual patch files per commit
• git apply to apply patches
 git am to apply patches from an mbox
• Can also compare
 Between specific objects
 To branches/tags
 Undoing What is Done
• git checkout
 Used to checkout a specific version/branch of the tree
• git reset
 Moves the tree back to a certain specified version
 Use the --force to ignore working changes
• git revert
 Reverts a commit
 Does not delete the commit object, just applies a
patch
 Reverts can themselves be reverted!
• Git never deletes a commit object
 It is very hard to shoot yourself in the foot!
 Git and Tagging

• Tags are just human readable shortcuts for

hashes
• Branches can be made from any commit
• git tag <tag-name>
 Branching
• Git branching is lightweight
 No massive copying a la CVS/Subversion
 Tools for helping merge branches and changes easily
• You are ALWAYS on a branch
• Branches can be local or remote
• Key commands
 git branch
 git merge
 git cherry-pick
• Allows you to choose specific commits to apply
• You can edit the commits while cherry picking
 Using Branches
• git checkout -b branch
• git checkout -b devel/branch
• git branch
 Lists all local branches available
• We can now make changes in one branch
and propagate change using
 git merge
 git cherry-pick
 Rebasing Example

• Simple branching
o--o--o <-- origin
\
a--b--c <-- mywork
 Rebasing Example

• Work done on origin branch

o--o--O--o--o--o <-- origin
\
a--b--c <-- mywork
 Rebasing Example

• Could merge changes into branch

• git merge origin
o--o--O--o--o--o <-- origin
\ \
a--b--c--m<-- mywork
 Rebasing Example

• Rebasing moves branch point

• git rebase origin
o--o--O--o--o--o <-- origin
\
a`--b`--c`
 Cleaning Up
• git fsck
 Checks object database to make sure all is
sane
 Can show information about dangling objects
• git gc
 Cleans up repository and compress files
 When used with --prune, cleans out dangling
blobs
 Can really speed up larger repositories
 Using Remote
• Use git clone to replicate • Protocols
repository  Local filesystem
 SSH
• Get changes with  Rsync
 git fetch (fetches and
merges)  HTTP
 git pull  Git protocol

• Propagate changes with

 git push
 Cloning our Repository
• git clone first-git-repo
 Now have a full git repository to work with
• Changes are pushed back with git push
 Pushing changes WILL NOT change working copy on
the repository being worked on
• Branches can be based off of remote branches
 git branch --track new-branch remote/branch
• Remote configuration information stored in
.git/config
 Can have multiple remote backends!
 Git for Software Versioning
• Create convention to define default server
• Developers clone from central server
• Lots of tools for transmitting patches between
developers
• Being used for
 Linux (obviously)
 Ruby On Rails
 Check out http://github.com for a variety of hosted
projects
 Git for Backups

• Example: Directory needs regular backups

 Could use rsync but unwieldy in size

• Create Git repository for appropriate

directory
 Regular local commits
 Regular push to backup location
 Get simple revision heistory
 Git for Configuration Management

• Example: Apache configurations

 Multiple environments (dev/test/production)
 Minor differences between environments
• IP Address
• Log levels
 Want to effectively move changes across
environments
 Git and Other VCS
• Integrations with
 Subversion
 CVS
 Darcs
 Many others
• Example of integration with Subversion
 Use git-svn to fetch and commit push
• Note initial fetch may take a long time as each commit is
downloaded individually!
 Use git commands for everything
 Branches integrated with tags and branches
 Some Git Coolness

• bash/zsh completion
• Gitk
 GUI to review changes
• git instaweb
 Used for starting HTTP process for browing
project
 Further Resources
• http://git.or.cz/
 http://git.or.cz/course/cvs.html (For CVS users)
 http://git.or.cz/course/svn.html (For SVN users)
• http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/
user-manual.html
• http://jonas.iki.fi/git_guides/HTML/git_guide/