GitHub

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a platform where developers store and share their code. Think of it like a social network for programmers, but instead of sharing photos or updates, they share software projects. It helps developers collaborate on projects, track changes, and manage different versions of their code. It’s widely used for open-source projects and by teams working on software development together.

1. Installing and Getting Started with Git in Linux

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install git
git --version

1.2. Configuring Git

After installing Git, you should configure it with your name and email. This information is used to identify your commits.

1. Set Your Name: Replace Your Name with your actual name:

   git config --global user.name "Your Name"

2. Set Your Email: Replace your.email@example.com with your email address:

   git config --global user.email "your.email@example.com"

1.3. Cloning an Existing Repository:

1. Navigate to the Directory: Open Terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to clone the repository. For example:

   cd /path/to/your/desired/directory

2. Clone the Repository: Use the git clone command followed by the URL of the GitHub repository you want to clone. For example, to clone a repository named example_repo from GitHub:

   git clone https://github.com/username/example_repo.git

   Replace username with the GitHub username and example_repo with the name of the repository you want to clone.

3. Navigate into the Cloned Repository: After cloning, navigate into the cloned repository:

   cd example_repo

2. Branching in the repositories

2.1. Creating a new branch

git branch --all
git checkout -b new-branch-name
git checkout new-branch-name

2.2. Deleting a branch

Once you’ve merged your changes from a branch and no longer need it, you can delete it:

1. Delete Locally:

   git branch -d branch-name

   This deletes the branch named branch-name locally, but only if its changes have been merged into another branch.

2. Delete Remotely: If you’ve pushed the branch to GitHub and want to delete it there too:

   git push origin --delete branch-name

   This deletes the branch named branch-name on the remote repository (origin on GitHub).

2.3 Add Files

Start tracking files by adding them to the staging area:

git add <file>  # Replace <file> with the actual filename or use '.' to add all files

2.4 Commit Changes

Commit the staged changes to the repository:

git commit -m "Initial commit"  # Use a meaningful commit message

template:
<type>[optional scope]: <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

3. Merging the branches

Navigate to main: First, ensure you are on the branch into which you want to merge changes. Typically, this is the main branch:

git checkout main
git fetch origin

Fetch Latest Changes: It’s a good practice to fetch the latest changes from the remote repository before merging:

git fetch origin

Merge Branch: Merge the changes from the branch you want to merge (let’s say devpt) into main:

git merge devpt

4. Creating patches

List all commits on a specific branch: Replace <branch-name> with the name of the branch you’re interested in, such as devpt in your case.

git log devpt (or)
git log -n 10  # Shows the last 10 commits

Generate patches for the commits:

git format-patch <commit_hash> (or) # for a particular
git format-patch <commit_hash_from>..<commit_hash_to> # for 2 or more commits

4.1 Applying the patch files

If you have .patch files generated using git format-patch or another method, you can apply them using git apply or git am.

4.1.2 Using git apply

1. Navigate to your Git repository:

   cd /path/to/your/repository

2. Apply the patch using git apply:

   git apply path/to/your/patchfile.patch

   Replace path/to/your/patchfile.patch with the actual path to your patch file.

5. Reset the repo to the specific commit

Use git reset to move the HEAD pointer and working directory to the specific commit you want to start from. This effectively “rewinds” your repository’s state to that commit.

git log devpt
git reset --hard <commit-hash>

Replace <commit-hash> with the hash of the commit you want to start from. This hash uniquely identifies each commit and can be found using git log.