A Crash Course in Git and the UNIX Command Line

Installation

Download and install git. Mac and Windows users should download the installer from http://git-scm.com/. Linux users should install through their distribution’s package management system.

Getting Started

Open up your terminal.

Mac Users: Search for “terminal” in spotlight
Windows Users: Look for “git bash” in the start menu
Linux Users: Accessories -> Terminal

Command Line Basics

pwd - print your current working directory
ls [dir] - list contents of directory, default is your current directory
ls -l [dir] - more detailed ls listing
cd [dir] - change your current working directory, default is home directory
cat [file] - print out contents of file
less [file] - display contents of file in a scrolling window
cp src dest - copy file from one place to another
mv src dest - move file from one place to another
rm file - remove a file
rm -rf dir - recursively remove a directory and all its contents
echo [text] - prints text supplied by command line arguments
grep pattern [file] - print lines containing the pattern from the file

Setting up git:

git config --global user.name "Your Name Here"
git config --global user.email "Your Email Here"

Git Basics

git init [dir] - creates a new git repo
git clone [url] - clone an existing repo
git add [file] - adds a file to the index
git commit -m message - commits changes in index
git log - see list of commits
git pull [remote] [branch] - pulls changes from remote repo to your repo
git push [remote] [branch] - pushes your changes to remote repo
git remote add name url - adds a new remote repo

Branching

git branch name - create a new branch
git checkout branch - check out a branch
git merge branch - merge changes from other branch into current one