Git and Github

This repository was created primarily for personal learning purposes — a place to apply and reinforce my understanding of Git and GitHub.

It contains helpful notes and frequently used Git commands that I’ve found useful during my learning journey.

• git is version control
• like a time machine for code
• saving progress or checkpoints
• track changes
• go back for old versions
• work in teams
• Github : store and share git projects on cloud + collaborate with others
• repo : project folder tracked by git - contains code, docs, history of changes

Set name and email

git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

configured for global

git config --global user.name "Neel Kumar"

---

Initialise git repo

git init

---

Checking status

git status

output :

On branch main

No commits yet

nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track)

• .git folder created - hidden folder
• we are on “main” branch

---

Checking current branch

git branch

nothing happens!

as there is no commit

create file readme.md

Making initial commit

git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"

now run

git branch

output :

* main

---

Git insiders

• .git - tracks everything we do in our repo

working directory         [untracked]
			 👇
staging area (snapshot)   [staged]
			 👇
		repository            [commited]

git status

output :

On branch main
nothing to commit, working tree clean

---

Creating files

• data.txt
• new_data.txt

using terminal to create them :

echo "This is some data of some txt file" > data.txt

---

Moving files to staging area

git add data.txt
git add new_data.txt

---

Committing changes

git commit -m "create data.txt"

Tip: write commit msgs in simple present tense

To make all untracked files go in staging area

git add .

---

Logs

• details, info or meta data
• you get more info from logs
• tracking info

git log

output :

commit 1c5699a673bfd158c6de8e3596fd157b0fd21031 (HEAD -> main)
Author: Neel Kumar <[email protected]>
Date:   Sat Oct 4 07:11:44 2025 +0530

    Add myfile.txt and new_data.txt

commit ffabe2b18d95c4a74709451bd0a2c30c31e9b5d6
Author: Neel Kumar <[email protected]>
Date:   Sat Oct 4 07:05:59 2025 +0530

    create data.txt file

commit 8c464e57c7a5aa1aad6df3bf0a25748cd4f8efa4
Author: Neel Kumar <[email protected]>
Date:   Sat Oct 4 05:52:27 2025 +0530

    initial commit

Getting short log

git log --oneline

output :

1c5699a (HEAD -> main) Add myfile.txt and new_data.txt
ffabe2b create data.txt file
8c464e5 initial commit

---

Usage of .gitignore file

Created few more files

• .env
• api_secrets.txt

These are hidden files

Need to make sure git don’t track them

Solution :

create new file - .gitignore

Add following data in it,

.env
api_secrets.txt

then do following,

git add .
git commit -m "add .gitignore"
git status

---

Ignoring folders in our repo

Folder inside repo :

details
		|____ bank.txt
		|____ password.txt

add following in .gitignore

details/

---

Tracking empty folders for later use

Git does not track empty folders

To make them track,

make folder mails and add .gitkeep

mails
	|____ .gitkeep

---

Branches

Viewing branches

git branch

Creating new branch

• Method 1

git checkout -b newBranch

• Method 2

git switch -c newBranch

Now checking branch:

git branch

output :

  main
* newBranch

switching back to other branch

git branch main

when creating any branch, it is a good practice to be in main branch and create new branch from there

Merging git branches in main

git merge newBranch -m "merge newBranch"

---

Rebase

• First in both branch 1, branch 2 - we do some changes and commit them
• Then, go in branch 2

git rebase main

go in main

git switch main

Finally,

git merge branch2

Using reflog : a better version of log

git reflog

output :

73139f9 (HEAD -> main) HEAD@{0}: commit: delete file
6adbd88 (newRebaseBranch) HEAD@{1}: merge newRebaseBranch: Fast-forward
2e08a23 HEAD@{2}: checkout: moving from newRebaseBranch to main
6adbd88 (newRebaseBranch) HEAD@{3}: rebase (finish): returning to refs/heads/newRebaseBranch
6adbd88 (newRebaseBranch) HEAD@{4}: rebase (pick): add email in email.txt
2e08a23 HEAD@{5}: rebase (start): checkout main
2101a7f HEAD@{6}: checkout: moving from main to newRebaseBranch
2e08a23 HEAD@{7}: commit: add id of neel
49e6be2 HEAD@{8}: checkout: moving from newRebaseBranch to main
2101a7f HEAD@{9}: commit: add email in email.txt
49e6be2 HEAD@{10}: checkout: moving from main to newRebaseBranch
49e6be2 HEAD@{11}: commit: add account folder
c7575d0 HEAD@{12}: checkout: moving from rebaseFeature to main
9ba39cb (rebaseFeature) HEAD@{13}: rebase (finish): returning to refs/heads/rebaseFeature
9ba39cb (rebaseFeature) HEAD@{14}: rebase (continue): modify with rebaseBranch
c7575d0 HEAD@{15}: rebase (start): checkout main
742c767 HEAD@{16}: checkout: moving from main to rebaseFeature
c7575d0 HEAD@{17}: commit: modfiy with main branch
00d9fd3 HEAD@{18}: checkout: moving from rebaseFeature to main
742c767 HEAD@{19}: commit: modify with rebaseBranch
00d9fd3 HEAD@{20}: checkout: moving from main to rebaseFeature
00d9fd3 HEAD@{21}: merge bugfix: Merge made by the 'ort' strategy.
e7e8b04 HEAD@{22}: commit: bug fixed from main

• head0 is current commit
• head 1 is previous commit and so on

---

Bringing back deleted file

git reset --hard HEAD~1

But the above one is not recommended way

⇒ we should always use commit id

git reset --hard 6adbd88

Put id of that head here after which you delete the file

---

Using git diff to check our changes

git diff --staged

output :

diff --git a/readme.md b/readme.md
index e69de29..a66477c 100644
--- a/readme.md
+++ b/readme.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+This is readme.md file
+It describes the whole repo!
\ No newline at end of file

To undo whatever we add in staging area :

git reset

---

Cherry picking

⇒ When you want to merge a specific commit of a branch to main branch

Made 3 commits with cherryBranch

Now cherry pick 1st commit - “update readme.md”

First get commit id :

git switch cherryBranch
git log --oneline

output :

90ae239 (HEAD -> cherryBranch) update id.txt
cc102f7 add email in email.txt
06621a1 update readme.md

here, commit id = 06621a1

now do these commands

git switch main
git cherry-pick 06621a1

output :

[main 0506483] update readme.md
 Date: Sat Oct 4 21:22:49 2025 +0530
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Stashing

• you are in some branch and making some changes
• Now you want to switch your branch but you have not saved your changes
• Then there are 2 ways to do so
  1. commit all changes - but if you want to test them later and not now, it is not good option
  2. You push the changes in stash

Stash - a temporary memory to store changes

If we try switching without saving changes, we will get this :

error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout:
	development.txt
Please commit your changes or stash them before you switch branches.
Aborting

stashing changes :

git stash push -m "push to stash"

Getting stash info :

git stash list

output :

stash@{0}: On dev1: push to stash

bring back changes from stash :

git stash apply

Now all changes will be restored

But things in stash is still there, we need too remove them :

git stash pop

---

Working with github

Renaming branch :

git branch -m newBranchName

adding remote origin :

git remote add origin "https://github.com/neelkumar01/learning-git.git"

checking origin :

git remote -v

output :

origin	https://github.com/neelkumar01/learning-git.git (fetch)
origin	https://github.com/neelkumar01/learning-git.git (push)

to remove origin :

git remote remove origin

pushing code

git push origin main

cloning repo

git clone "https://github.com/neelkumar01/Learning-Git.git"

now use cd to go in cloned repo

advisable to create new branch to make changes