📌 Setting Up Git (For the Newbies)

Before diving into the fun stuff, let’s configure Git:

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git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

You can check your setup with:

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git config --list

Boom!

Git now knows who you are.

No more anonymous commits from “Some Guy on the Internet.”

🎬 Starting a New Project (Or Cloning an Existing One)

Initialize a new repo:

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git init

Clone an existing repo:

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git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git

Now you have a Git-powered project.

It’s like giving your project superpowers (but with great power comes great responsibility).

📂 Tracking Changes

Check the status of your repo:

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git status

This tells you what’s changed, what’s staged, and whether you accidentally committed debug print statements.

Add files to staging:

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git add file.txt  # Add a specific file
git add .         # Add all changes

Commit your changes:

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git commit -m "Add a meaningful commit message"

Make sure your commit messages don’t look like:

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git commit -m "Fixed stuff"
git commit -m "Final fix"
git commit -m "FINAL final fix"

Future you (and your team) will thank you.

🔄 Working with Branches

Create a new branch:

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git branch feature-branch

Switch to another branch:

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git checkout feature-branch

Or, since Git 2.23, use:

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git switch feature-branch

Create and switch in one go:

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git checkout -b new-branch

List all branches:

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git branch

Delete a branch (once you’re done with it):

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git branch -d old-branch

Use -D (uppercase) if Git refuses to delete it because it’s not merged yet.

📤 Pushing and Pulling

Push your code to remote:

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git push origin branch-name

Pull latest changes from remote:

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git pull origin branch-name

🔄 Merging and Rebasing

Merge branches:

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git checkout main
git merge feature-branch

Rebase (for a cleaner commit history):

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git checkout feature-branch
git rebase main

Abort a bad rebase:

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git rebase --abort

Think of merge as adding a new chapter, while rebase rewrites history.

Use wisely.

🏠 Reset, Revert, and Stash (a.k.a. “Oops, Undo!”)

Undo the last commit (without losing changes):

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git reset --soft HEAD~1

Undo the last commit (and erase changes):

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git reset --hard HEAD~1

Revert a commit (create a new commit that undoes it):

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git revert <commit-hash>

Stash changes (hide them temporarily):

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git stash

Apply stashed changes:

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git stash pop

🕵️‍♂️ Finding Stuff

View commit history:

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git log --oneline --graph --decorate --all

See who changed a specific file:

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git blame file.txt

Search in commits:

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git grep "search-term"

💥 Dealing with Conflicts

When Git screams about merge conflicts:

1. Open the conflicting file.
2. Manually fix the differences (keep what you want, delete what you don’t).
3. Stage the file: git add file.txt
4. Commit the changes: git commit -m "Fix merge conflict"

Merge conflicts are like unexpected plot twists in a movie.

Sometimes painful, but necessary.

🏁 Wrapping Up

Git is an essential tool, and mastering it will save you a ton of headaches.

This cheatsheet covers the basics, but Git is deep, so don’t stop learning!

If all else fails, remember the golden rule:

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git reset --hard origin/main

Use it with caution.

It’s the “Ctrl+Z” of Git, but it erases your local changes.

🔑 Key Ideas

🔗 References

• Official Git Documentation
• GitHub Git Cheat Sheet
• Pro Git Book