in git, Just Enough, Linux, Mac

The smallest git tutorial you’ll ever need

Let me preface with this: this is over-simplified for someone just getting started with git, who does not have the time to learn all the intricacies of git, and covers the most common workflow I’ve encountered, that is:
– download code from a remote repository
– make changes
– commit and send the changes back
– get the latest from that remote repository

So, here goes:

First you’ll need to install git is it is not aleady installed.

Checkout a project

git clone http://github.com/psq/spider.git

Commit

Edit files as you see fit, then when time comes to commit your changes back in:

git status

will show you what files you’ve modified. Or added. If you added any files, add them to the files controlled by git (this also works with a new directory and will recursively add everything)

git add README.txt

Then commit all

git commit -a -m "added readme"

-m option adds a messages, -a adds all modified files to the commit

Upload your changes

Then push your changes back to the original repo

git push origin master

Download the latest version

And finally, to get any updates from the master repo (you may need to do this before doing the push above)

git pull origin master

This is overly simplified on purpose, but will give any beginner time to dive in deeper when time permits.

See this previous post for some helpful git shortcuts