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HEAD #

• Head is a pointer to the current branch reference, which is thus a pointer to the last commit made on that branch

Branches #

• A branch is just a pointer to a specific commit

Ignoring Files #

• To remove a file (and it’s tracking from a git repo):
  • git rm <file>
• To remove a file from tracking (but not the file itself)
  • git rm --cached <file>

Rewrite History #

• Can use git rebase -i in interactive mode
• The edit (e) flag in a rebase allows you to pause at that commit and make changes when rebasing interactively

General #

• Add and commit files git commit -a
• To rename in git (not show up as a delete and recreate) use git mv
• --amend with the --no-edit flag won’t edit the commit message
  • Can change last commit date with --amend --date
• Going back a set number of commits (e.g. 2)
  • HEAD~2
  • HEAD^^
• git reset modifies where HEAD points tp
• git reflog records where HEAD has pointed to previously
  • To return to a place one before where HEAD currently is
    • git reset --soft HEAD@{1}
    • soft does not reset your working directory, whereas --hard will make your working directory exactly like the commit you reset to
• git log -2 will only show you the last two commits
• go back a specific amount of commits in a rebase with git rebase -i HEAD~2
• git update-index can be used to update the git file index
  • can do things like add/removed to the tracked index, and plenty more
• git add -i gives an interacting add menu
• git add -p or --patch allows you to patch commits -> split a file’s changes into different parts (or patches) to be put in different commits. You can edit the patches manually using the e option
• git cherry-pick grabs one commit and replays it onto the specific branch you are on
  • It is generally best-practice to squash commits before cherry-picking
  • This is like a rebase with just one commit
  • Since a branch name is a pointer to the latest commit on that branch, you can cherry-pick the latest commit on a branch by using git cherry-pick <branchname>
• git rebase <branchname> applies all commits on your current branch not in branchname on top of <branchname>
• git log -S<word> will search for all commits with the given word added within the source files
• ^ means parent of. E.g. HEAD^ means the commit one before what HEAD is currently pointing to
• To find a commit that introduced a bug, run a custom script testing for the bug with git bisect run -sh -c "command"
  • Start a bisect with git bisect start
  • Give it a good commit without the bug with git bisect good <commit>
  • Give it a bad commit with the bug with git bisect bad <commit>
  • The use the git bisect run command. This will binary search throughout the commits to find the bug that first introduced the commit
  • You can have the bisect run command run a unit test, etc.
  • You can use git bisect for anything (e.g. performance improvements, etc.)