Git has become the most widely used version control system in the world. Following are the premier commands one needs to master to work on Git.

  • Setup Git
git config --global user.name <your-name>
git config --global user.email <youremail@xxx.com>

The git config command configures the user name and email for all commits by the current user.

  • Clone a repository
git clone <repo>

The git clone command copies an existing central Git repository to your local machine. Take an example

git clone https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git
cd openssl

A copy of openssl Git repository is stored on your local machine within openssl directory.

  • Check out branch
git checkout <branch>

The git checkout command checks out a branch. It’s also easy to create a new branch for your work.

git checkout -b <your-new-branch>

You have created a new branch and switched to it. To verify that you are working on that branch, use:

git branch
  • Add changes
git add <files>

The git add command adds a change in the working directory to the staging area. To add all the changes in the current directory, use:

git add .
  • Save changes
git commit

The git commit command commits the staged changes to the project histroy.

  • Inspect
git status

The git status displays the state of the working directory and the staging area.

git log

The git log command displays the committed history.

  • Rewrite history
git rebase -i HEAD~i

The git rebase with -i flag begins an interactive rebasing session. It opens an editor where you can enter commands for each commit, whether to merge it into other commits or rewrite its commit message.

  • Push to remote
git push origin master

The git push command pushes a branch to the remote centralized server.