“Git” The Basics: A Version Control Cheat Sheet

I am finally starting to understand git version control! It makes developing a project on different computers easy. Some of these notes were picked up from the super informative Reproducible Data Analysis in Jupyter video series by Jake VanderPlas, author of the Python Data Science Handbook.

First, go here, download and install git if you haven’t yet. Alright, here are my go-to steps and commands for git:

Beginning a New Project With Git

Create new repository on GitHub
Add a README
Add a Python gitignore
Add a license (Jake V. used an MIT license)

Clone Any Repository from GitHub

Visit your new project, or any GitHub project, click the green “Clone or download” button and copy the link.
In your terminal or command prompt, navigate to the directory where you want to clone your project.
In terminal, enter: git clone PASTE_URL_HERE
Now cd into your project folder.

Push Your Local Computer Changes to the Master Repository

Let’s say you did some work on your computer and want to push the changes to GitHub. Enter these commands in terminal:

git add .
git commit -m "Add your commit note here"
git push origin master

*Above: git add . = stage all files in project directory for master

**Substitute git add path\to\file\here to stage only a single file to add to your master repository.

Fetch Changes From Master Branch to Your Local Computer

I like to update my local computer with any master branch changes before beginning work on it. Enter these commands in terminal:

git fetch
git pull origin master

Review Merge Conflicts

Sometimes, your code may conflict with changes in the master branch. You’ll find out if you try to push or pull changes and the auto-merge fails. Use “git status” to locate the files with the conflicts. Enter in your terminal: