Git is a free and open-source version control system.
Version control makes it possible for multiple developers to work on a file at the same time.
In this workshop you will need to:
- have git installed on your machine.
- create a github account if you don't have one already.
- have an IDE or code editor you are comfortable with.
Don't worry if you don't have these things done, we will be helping you out during the workshop.
To get started, fork this repository to create a copy of it in your github account.
The next step is to clone the forked version of this repository. On the main page of the repo, copy the url shown here:
Then use the command in your terminal:
git clone https://github.com/<your_github_username>/uts-progsoc-git-workshop.git
You should now be able to redirect into the directory just created using the command line.
Next, it is good to get in the habit after each command to use git status. Let us use it now.
git status
Now check which branch you are on:
git branch
You should only see master which is the default branch in this repo.
When there are other branches in your repo the green branch is the current one you are on.
The next step is to create your own branch to work on. try this:
git branch new-branch
It is best to try to name your branches as specific as possible, so not to confuse them with any others. To see all your branches:
git branch
As you can see, you have created your branch, but are not currently on it. To navigate onto it use the command:
git checkout new-branch
git branch
Now you can see you are on that branch. Go back to master and now we are going to delete new-branch.
git checkout master
git branch -d new-branch
git branch
As you can see, your branch is now gone.
Now it is time to make some changes in the project. Make yourself a new branch named update-list and go onto it. open up the file index.html in a text editor.
As you can see, this is an html file containing an unordered list. Make some changes to this file by adding a coupe of extra bullet points to the list and save it. Now in your terminal:
git status
You will see something like this:
You will see your changes in red. now we need to add them to the git staging area. Doing this is like telling git to pay attention to these files, and start tracking the changes. To do this write this command:
git add index.html
git status
Now you can see the file name has turned green. Now to commit your changes.
git commit -m 'added some bullet points to the unordered list'
git status
The message could be anything, but it is best to make it something that describes what you just did.
Ok at this point your changes are on your local branch but won't show up on github because you're local branch isn't tracking a remote branch yet. To create a remote branch and have your local branch track it, type:
git push --set-upstream origin new-branch
Now that you have made and committed your changes, it is time to merge your branch with master. Even though you are not working with anyone else on this repository, it is always good practice to make sure your current branch is completely up to date with master. Imagine if you were working with a team. Someone else has already pushed up changes to master. If that someone else and yourself have changed the same file, it is quite likely that your changes will not be compatible with theirs. To avoid this, you want to merge your changes with theirs to avoid future problems. Checkout back onto master and pull the remote branch down. These commands look like this:
git checkout master
git pull origin master
On master use the merge command to merge the update-list branch into master:
git merge update-list
and then push your local changes to the remote branch:
git push