#+TITLE: Learning Git in Reverse
#+DESCRIPTION: A backwards introduction to the information manager from hell
#+TAGS: Git
#+TAGS: Learning
#+TAGS: Talks
#+TAGS: zData
#+DATE: 2016-01-18
#+SLUG: git-in-reverse
#+LINK: git-in-reverse-pdf https://kennyballou.com/git-in-reverse.pdf
#+LINK: git-scm https://git-scm.com
#+LINK: git-scm-book https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
#+LINK: wiki-zlib https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zlib
#+LINK: man-git-init https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-init.html
#+LINK: man-git-hash-object https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-hash-object.html
#+LINK: man-git-update-index https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-update-index.html
#+LINK: man-git-write-tree https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-write-tree.html
#+LINK: man-git-commit-tree https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-commit-tree.html
#+LINK: man-git-update-ref https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-update-ref.html
#+LINK: man-git-add https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-add.html
#+LINK: man-git-commit https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-commit.html
#+LINK: man-git-clone https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-clone.html
#+LINK: man-git-status https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-status.html
#+LINK: man-git-log https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-log.html
#+LINK: man-git-pull https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-pull.html
#+LINK: man-git-push https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-push.html
#+LINK: man-git-remote https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-remote.html
#+LINK: man-git-fetch https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-fetch.html
#+LINK: man-git-branch https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-branch.html
#+LINK: man-git-checkout https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-checkout.html
#+LINK: man-git-merge https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-merge.html
#+LINK: so-git-pull-considered-harmful https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15316601/in-what-cases-could-git-pull-be-harmful#15316602
#+BEGIN_QUOTE
The content of this post is drafted from contents of a
[[git-in-reverse-pdf][similarly titled presentation]].
#+END_QUOTE
#+BEGIN_PREVIEW
It is certainly counter-intuitive to learn to drive by first going backwards,
so why learn how to use Git in reverse? The short answer is: knowing the
internals of Git /should/ make the commands and workflows of Git more
accessible and understandable.
#+END_PREVIEW
We will start by touring the plumbing commands and walk all the way through
branching.
** What is Git±
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+CAPTION: If that doesn't fix it, git.txt contains the phone number of a friend of mine who understands git. Just wait through a few minutes of 'It's really pretty simple, just think of branches as...' and eventually you'll learn the commands that will fix everything.
#+NAME: fig: XKCD on Git
[[https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/git.png]]
#+HTML:
Git is a few things to many people, and creating a standard definition is our
first step to fully understanding the nebulous Git.
Git, developed by Linus Torvalds, is a distributed version control system
(DVCS). This means, Git is a tool for managing, typically, source code and its
related versioning. It accomplishes this by creating a distributed acyclic
graph of the code and folder structure and tracking the changes in the graph.
Git internally accomplishes this by using a key-value or content addressable
filesystem. Git only knows how to store "objects". There is really no other
/real/ thing that Git is storing.
** Plumbing
We will start by learning a few of the most basic plumbing commands of Git,
beginning with the [[man-git-hash-object][~git-hash-object(1)~]] command:
*** Git Objects
Git objects are a [[wiki-zlib][zlib]] compressed binary file stored under the
~.git/objects~ folder of any Git repository. They are typically created with
the [[man-git-hash-object][~git-hash-object(1)~]] command are very basic in
content: several bytes of header information used by Git, type and size, and
the full contents of the file Git is storing.
For the majority of this post, we will be referencing objects created in a
temporary repository:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
$ cd /tmp
$ git init foo
$ cd foo
#+END_EXAMPLE
#+BEGIN_QUOTE
The [[man-git-init][~git-init(1)~]] command creates a new local Git
repository in the current directory or creates a new directory with a newly
initialized Git repository.
#+END_QUOTE
After creating a new Git repository, let's examine its current contents:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± find .git
.git
.git/objects
.git/objects/info
.git/objects/pack
.git/config
.git/HEAD
.git/hooks
.git/hooks/post-checkout
.git/hooks/post-commit
.git/hooks/ctags
.git/hooks/post-merge
.git/hooks/post-rewrite
.git/refs
.git/refs/tags
.git/refs/heads
#+END_EXAMPLE
We see that Git has created several folders and files for its internal usage.
We, as developers and users of Git, should generally never need to do anything
to these files, with a small exception for ~.git/hooks~.
As noted before, ~.git/objects~ will be where Git will store all the objects
(source code and related) we create. ~.git/hooks~ are used for add custom
operations (white-space, conversions, ~ctags~, etc.) to Git's
operation. ~.git/refs~ is where Git stores information about tags and
branches. ~.git/config~ is a file for local Git configuration options. This
file will store information about our repository and where it will go for
synchronization. ~.git/HEAD~ stores a reference to the working copy commit
hash.
With all this out of the way, we can now start creating objects.
**** [[man-git-hash-object][~git-hash-object(1)~]]
We can start out by providing some content for
[[man-git-hash-object][~git-hash-object(1)~]]:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'foo' | git hash-object --stdin
257cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
#+END_EXAMPLE
[[man-git-hash-object][~git-hash-object(1)~]] typically expects filenames, so
we provide ~--stdin~ to tell it we are passing contents from the standard input
stream.
However, since we haven't told Git to store the contents, we have no objects
stored in the ~.git/objects~ folder. We will need to pass the ~-w~ flag to
[[man-git-hash-object][~git-hash-object(1)~]] to tell Git to store the
contents.
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'foo' | git hash-object -w --stdin
257cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
#+END_EXAMPLE
Now, if we examine the ~.git/objects~ folder, we will see a new folder and a
new file:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± find .git/objects -type f
.git/objects/25/7cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
#+END_EXAMPLE
When Git stores objects, it splits the 40 character hash into two parts: the
first two characters and the last 38. The first two characters, in this case
25, as the folder, and the last 38, ~7cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99~,
as the file. The purpose of splitting the hash is to make indexing quicker.
Some of the original motivations for developing Git was a requirement of speed
and performance, can't manage decades of kernel history with a slow tool.
We can use another Git plumbing command to extract the contents of the object:
~git-cat-file~:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git cat-file -p 257cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
foo
#+END_EXAMPLE
Passing ~-p~ to ~git-cat-file~ tells Git to infer the type of the object.
Otherwise, we need to tell Git what the object is.
Moreover, because we know the objects are zlib compressed, we can use a tool
like ~zlib-flate~ or similar to peer inside the contents of the files
ourselves:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± cat .git/objects/25/7cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99 \
> | zlib-flate -uncompress
blob 4foo
#+END_EXAMPLE
Here we see the metadata that Git uses itself, but is otherwise the contents we
expect.
Perfect. We can store content in Git's object store and we can retrieve the
contents. However, attempting to manage files in this way will be more taxing
than any form of development. Furthermore, we don't have a way to store
filenames yet. Thus, we will need a new type of object, trees.
*** Git Trees
Trees are objects.
Trees are similarly zlib compressed binaries of the internal data structure of
tracked folder structure of the repository. We create Git trees using the
[[man-git-update-index][~git-update-index(1)~]] and
[[man-git-write-tree][~git-write-tree(1)~]] plumbing commands.
Since we have an object already added to the Git object store, we can go ahead
and create a basic tree:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git update-index --add --cacheinfo 100644 \
257cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99 foo.txt
± git write-tree
fcf0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
#+END_EXAMPLE
Thus far, we have created two objects, one to store the contents of ~foo.txt~
and another as the tree, which stores binding between the contents and the
filename for ~foo.txt~.
Visually, this may look like something similar to the following image:
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Git Tree
[[file:/media/git-tree-1.png]]
#+HTML:
If we inspect the ~.git/objects~ directory, we should see a new object:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± find .git/objects -type f
.git/objects/fc/f0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
.git/objects/25/7cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
#+END_EXAMPLE
As we expected, there is a new folder and new file, ~fc~ and
~f0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4~, respectively.
Since Git trees are actually objects, we can use the ~git-cat-file~ command
again to print out the contents of the tree:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git cat-file -p fcf0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
100644 blob 257cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99 foo.txt
#+END_EXAMPLE
That is, trees are objects where the contents of the object describes a folder
structure "tree". It uses 4 columns for each element of the tree where the
first number uses something similar to the Unix permissions octals; the second
defines the type of object, this can be either ~blob~ or ~tree~; the third is
the hash of the object the entry points to; finally, the last element is the
filename of the object or folder name if the element is a tree.
A more complicated example of a Git tree may look like the following image:
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Another Git Tree
[[file:/media/git-tree-2.png]]
#+HTML:
Now we have file names and the ability to track folders, however, we are still
managing and holding onto the checksums ourselves. Furthermore, we have no
reference to who, when, why, or from where changes are being made. We need
another object to store this information.
*** Git Commits
This will sound familiar: Git commits are ... objects.
Git stores commits the same way it stores files and trees, as a
[[wiki-zlib][zLib]] compressed binary in the ~.git/objects~ folders. Similar
to trees, the contents of the object is specifically formatted, but they are
stored the same nonetheless. We can create commits using the
[[man-git-commit-tree][~git-commit-tree(1)~]] plumbing command.
The [[man-git-commit-tree][~git-commit-tree(1)~]] command takes a message, a
tree, and optionally a parent commit, and creates a commit object. If the
parent is not specified, it creates a root commit.
We have just created a tree, let's see what committing that tree looks like:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'our first commit' \
> | git commit-tree fcf0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
d7ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197
#+END_EXAMPLE
#+BEGIN_QUOTE
Notice, the hash returned here /will/ be different. This hash is dependent
on time and the author.
#+END_QUOTE
Inspecting our ~.git/objects~ store, we will see our new object:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± find .git/objects -type f
.git/objects/d7/ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197
.git/objects/fc/f0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
.git/objects/25/7cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
#+END_EXAMPLE
Similar to trees and files, we can use the ~git-cat-file~ command to inspect
the newly created commit object:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git cat-file -f d7ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197
tree fcf0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
author kballou 1453219069 -0700
committer kballou 1453219069 -0700
our first commit
#+END_EXAMPLE
Breaking down this structure, we have 4 lines, the first line tells which tree
this commit is saving. Since a tree already contains the information of all
the objects that are currently being tracked, the commit only needs to save the
root tree to be able to save /all/ the information for a commit. The second
and third line tell us the author and committer, often these will be the same.
They will be different for GitHub pull requests, or in other situations where
the author of the patch or change is different from the maintainer of the
project. Finally, after a blank line, the rest of the file is reserved for the
commit message; since "our first commit" message is short, it only takes a
single line.
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Git Commit
[[file:/media/git-commit-1.png]]
#+HTML:
To inform Git that we have created a commit, we need to add some information to
a few files. First, we need create the ~master~ reference. We do this by
putting the full commit hash into a file called ~.git/refs/heads/master~:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo d7ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197 > .git/refs/heads/master
#+END_EXAMPLE
The next thing we should do is update the ~.git/HEAD~ file to point to our new
reference:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'ref: refs/heads/master' > .git/HEAD
#+END_EXAMPLE
This brings Git up to speed on everything we have done manually, similarly,
this is what Git does for us when we use the porcelain commands for managing
code. However, it's not really recommended to be manually touching these
files, and in fact, there is another plumbing command for updating these files:
[[man-git-update-ref][~git-update-ref(1)~]]. Instead of the two commands
above, we can use a single invocation of
[[man-git-update-ref][~git-update-ref(1)~]] to perform the above:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git update-ref refs/heads/master d7ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197
#+END_EXAMPLE
Notice, [[man-git-update-ref][~git-update-ref(1)~]] is an idempotent operation,
that is, if the reference has already been changed to the current hash, running
this command again will yield no change.
Before we get into the porcelain commands, let's walk through the motions
again:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'bar' > bar.txt
± git hash-object -w bar.txt
5716ca5987cbf97d6bb54920bea6adde242d87e6
± git update-index --add --cacheinfo 100644 \
> 5716ca5987cbf97d6bb54920bea6adde242d87e6 bar.txt
± git write-tree
b98c9a9f9501ddcfcbe02a9de52964ed7dd76d5a
#+END_EXAMPLE
So far, we have added a new file, ~bar.txt~ with the contents of ~bar~. We
have added the file to a new tree and we have written the tree to the object
store. Before we commit the new tree, let's perform a quick inspection of the
tree:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git cat-file -p b98c9a9f9501ddcfcbe02a9de52964ed7dd76d5a
100644 blob 5716ca5987cbf97d6bb54920bea6adde242d87e6 bar.txt
100644 blob 257cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99 foo.txt
#+END_EXAMPLE
An entry for ~foo.txt~ is present in this new tree. Git is implicitly tracking
previous objects, and carrying them forward, we didn't have to do anything for
Git to do this. Furthermore, the only new objects in the object store so far
is the new object for the contents of ~bar.txt~ and the object for the new
tree:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± find .git/objects -type f
.git/objects/b9/8c9a9f9501ddcfcbe02a9de52964ed7dd76d5a
.git/objects/57/16ca5987cbf97d6bb54920bea6adde242d87e6
.git/objects/d7/ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197
.git/objects/fc/f0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
.git/objects/25/7cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
#+END_EXAMPLE
Now, we can commit this new tree using the
[[man-git-commit-tree][~git-commit-tree(1)~]] command:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'our second commit' | git commit-tree \
> -p d7ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197 \
> b98c9a9f9501ddcfcbe02a9de52964ed7dd76d5a
b7fd7d75c1375858d8f355735a56228b3eb5e813
#+END_EXAMPLE
Let's inspect this newly minted commit:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git cat-file -p b7fd7d75c1375858d8f355735a56228b3eb5e813
tree b98c9a9f9501ddcfcbe02a9de52964ed7dd76d5a
parent d7ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197
author kballou 1453229013 -0700
committer kballou 1453229013 -0700
our second commit
#+END_EXAMPLE
This commit should look very similar to the previous commit we created.
However, here we have a line dedicated to the "parent" commit, which should
line up with the commit passed to the ~-p~ flag of
[[man-git-commit-tree][~git-commit-tree(1)~]].
We can update the ~master~ reference, too, with the new hash:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git update-ref refs/heads/master b7fd7d75c1375858d8f355735a56228b3eb5e813
#+END_EXAMPLE
Let's modify ~foo.txt~ and create another commit:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'foo 2' > foo.txt
± git hash-object -w foo.txt
a3f555b643cbba18c0e69c82d8820c7487cebe15
± git update-index -add --cacheinfo 100644 \
a3f555b643cbba18c0e69c82d8820c7487cebe15 foo.txt
± git write-tree
68b757546e08c1d9033c8802e4de1c0d591d90c8
± echo 'our third commit' | git commit-tree \
> -p b7fd7d75c1375858d8f355735a56228b3eb5e813 \
> 68b757546e08c1d9033c8802e4de1c0d591d90c8
354c7435a9959e662cea02495957daa93d875899
± echo 354c7435a9959e662cea02495957daa93d875899 > .git/refs/heads/master
#+END_EXAMPLE
This final example, we have gone from creating a file, adding the file to a
tree, writing the tree, committing the tree, and finally, pushing forward the
~master~ reference.
There are a few more points to make before we go onto a brief tour of the
porcelain commands.
Let's go ahead and inspect the current state of the object store:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± find .git/objects -type f
.git/objects/35/4c7435a9959e662cea02495957daa93d875899
.git/objects/68/b757546e08c1d9033c8802e4de1c0d591d90c8
.git/objects/a3/f555b643cbba18c0e69c82d8820c7487cebe15
.git/objects/b7/fd7d75c1375858d8f355735a56228b3eb5e813
.git/objects/57/16ca5987cbf97d6bb54920bea6adde242d87e6
.git/objects/b9/8c9a9f9501ddcfcbe02a9de52964ed7dd76d5a
.git/objects/d7/ee3cdd8bfcc1b8c3f935302f2d2e78e69e4197
.git/objects/fc/f0be4d7e45f0ef9592682ad68e42270b0366b4
.git/objects/25/7cc5642cb1a054f08cc83f2d943e56fd3ebe99
#+END_EXAMPLE
There's a few things to notice here, every object we have created so far is
/still/ in the object store, the first version of ~foo.txt~ is still there
(~257cc5642...~). All the trees are still there, and of course the commits are
still around. This is because Git stores objects. It does not store computed
differences or anything of the sort, it simply stores the objects. Other
version control systems may store the patches, individually version files, or
even track file renames. Git does none of this. Git simply stores only the
objects you ask, it doesn't store the differences between any files, it doesn't
track that a file was renamed. Every commit points to the exact version of
/every/ file at that point in time. If a difference between the working file
and the stored version is asked for, it's computed, if a difference between
yesterday's version of a file and today's, it's computed. If a file was
renamed, it can be inferred by a similarity index and computing the difference
between Git trees. This achieves tremendous performance gains because
computing text differences is relatively cheap compared to attempting to manage
code patches as a means of versioning.
** Porcelain
Now that we have gone through our tour of the plumbing commands and Git
internals, we can start /actually/ use Git. It will be very rare that the
typical user of Git will ever be using any of the plumbing commands above or
touching files under the ~.git~ folder in their day-to-day work. For the
day-to-day usage of Git, we will be using the "porcelain" commands, the
commands that take the arduous steps above, and turn them into a pleasant walk
in the park. Essentially, everything we have done above can be accomplished
with two (2) commands in Git: [[man-git-add][~git-add(1)~]] and
[[man-git-commit][~git-commit(1)~]].
Let's initialize a new temporary repository for demonstration:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
$ cd /tmp
$ git init bar
$ cd bar
#+END_EXAMPLE
After initializing the repository, we can add a file, say, ~foo.txt~:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± echo 'foo' > foo.txt
#+END_EXAMPLE
Next, we can use the [[man-git-add][~git-add(1)~]] command to stage the file to
be tracked:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git add foo.txt
#+END_EXAMPLE
Next, we can use the [[man-git-commit][~git-commit(1)~]] command to commit the
newly created ~foo.txt~ file:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git commit -m 'initial commit'
#+END_EXAMPLE
Everything we have done so far is now achieved with these two commands. We
have stored the contents of the file, created a tree, and committed the tree.
There are a few more commands that are very useful to using Git on a regular
basis: [[man-git-clone][~git-clone(1)~]], [[man-git-status][~git-status(1)~]],
[[man-git-log][~git-log(1)~]], [[man-git-pull][~git-pull(1)~]],
[[man-git-push][~git-push(1)~]], and [[man-git-remote][~git-remote(1)~]].
*** [[man-git-clone][~git-clone(1)~]]
Before you can contribute to a project, you need your own copy of the
repository, this is where we would use [[man-git-clone][~git-clone(1)~]]. As
we have seen before, we can create /new/ repositories with
[[man-git-init][~git-init(1)~]], but we still need a means of getting existing
work from another source.
Here's an example of using ~git-clone~:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
$ git clone git://github.com/git/git.git
...
#+END_EXAMPLE
There are several protocols that can be used for the when cloning,
listed here in order of preference:
- ~SSH~
- Bi-directional data transfer
- Encrypted
- Typically authenticated, especially without passwords
- ~Git~
- Pull only
- Intelligent transfer mechanism
- ~HTTP/S~
- Bi-directional data transfer
- Authenticated
- Unintelligent transfer mechanism
- ~File~
*** [[man-git-status][~git-status(1)~]]
Often, you will need to know the state of the current repository, and the go-to
command to view the current state of the repository is the
[[man-git-status][~git-status(1)~]] command. It will give you information
about the currently modified files, the currently untracked files, the branch
you're one, if the branch is tracked upstream, it will let you know if you have
something to push, etc.
*** [[man-git-log][~git-log(1)~]]
[[man-git-log][~git-log(1)~]] is used to check the history of the repository.
Using [[man-git-log][~git-log(1)~]] with a few arguments, you can get a pretty
concise image of how your projects are changing.
Some commonly used options you might use might be:
- ~--stat~: Show the files and number of changes for each commit
- ~--oneline~: Show each commit on a single line
- ~--summary~: Show condensed summary of header information
*** [[man-git-pull][~git-pull(1)~]] and [[man-git-fetch][~git-fetch(1)~]]
[[man-git-pull][~git-pull(1)~]] is used to pull remote changes into your
current working copy. I prefer not use [[man-git-pull][~git-pull(1)~]] because
I find it to be slightly [[so-git-pull-considered-harmful][harmful]]. Instead,
I use either [[man-git-fetch][~git-fetch(1)~]] or a form of
[[man-git-remote][~git-remote(1)~]].
[[man-git-fetch][~git-fetch(1)~]] is a similar command used for "fetching"
remote changes, but does not attempt to automatically merge them into the local
branch.
*** [[man-git-push][~git-push(1)~]]
[[man-git-push][~git-push(1)~]] will send your changes to the remote location.
By default, this command will not attempt to overwrite the remote if the
changes cannot be applied with a "fast-forward" merge operation.
*** [[man-git-remote][~git-remote(1)~]]
[[man-git-remote][~git-remote(1)~]] is an overall "remote" management command.
It allows you to add remotes, rename remotes, and even fetch information about
remotes. "Remotes" are non-local/upstream sources of changes. The remote
"origin" is the default name for the remote of a clone. This could be a
co-worker's repository or it could be the central repository of the project.
With the [[man-git-remote][~git-remote(1)~]] command, we can add a new remote:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git remote add upstream proto://remote
#+END_EXAMPLE
We can rename a remote:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git remote rename origin upstream
#+END_EXAMPLE
And my favorite, we can fetch changes from the remote:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git remote update -p origin
#+END_EXAMPLE
I use this last command so much, in fact, I have created an alias in my
~~/.gitconfig~ file:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
[alias]
up = !git remote update -p
#+END_EXAMPLE
This way, I can decide when and /how/ I want to merge the upstream work into my
local copy.
The above commands along with ~git-add~ and ~git-commit~ will cover the
majority of Git related tasks, as far as simple, non-branching workflows are
concerned.
For more advanced usage of Git, we can continue to learn about code branching,
git branches, and merging techniques.
** Branches
Git branches are actually a very simplistic concept in both implementation and
intuition. Code and applications versioned by any version control tool have
their implicit branching points: when one user commits code that another user
isn't yet made aware, the code has diverged from a single path of existence to
multiple paths. This is a form of implicit branching and explicit branching
isn't much different.
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Code Branching
[[file:/media/code-branching.png]]
#+HTML:
The structure of Git makes branching trivial, in fact, all that's required is
to create a file that marks the branch point of the code. That is, to create a
file under ~.git/refs/heads~ that contains the branch's base commit hash. From
there, the code can safely move forward without changing anything of the other
branches.
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Git Code Branching
[[file:/media/git-branching-1.png]]
#+HTML:
Branching in Git is accomplished with [[man-git-branch][~git-branch(1)~]] and
[[man-git-checkout][~git-checkout(1)~]].
The basic form of [[man-git-branch][~git-branch(1)~]] is the following:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git branch {branch_name} [optional branch point]
#+END_EXAMPLE
If the branch point is not specified, [[man-git-branch][~git-branch(1)~]]
defaults to the ~HEAD~ reference.
Once the branch is created, you can switch to it using the
[[man-git-checkout][~git-checkout(1)~]] command:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git checkout {branch_name}
#+END_EXAMPLE
Moreover, if you're going to be creating a branch and immediately switching to
it, you can use the ~-b~ flag of [[man-git-checkout][~git-checkout(1)~]] to do
these two steps in one:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
± git checkout -b {branch_name} [optional branch point]
#+END_EXAMPLE
** Merging
Once you're ready to merge your changes from one branch into another branch,
you can use the [[man-git-merge][~git-merge(1)~]] command to accomplish that.
There are a few different ways Git can merge your work between two branches.
The first Git will try is called "fast-forward" merging, where Git will attempt
to play the source branch's commits against the target branch, from the common
history point forward.
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Git Fast Forward Merge 1
[[file:/media/git-ff-merge-1.png]]
#+HTML:
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Git Fast Forward Merge 2
[[file:/media/git-ff-merge-2.png]]
#+HTML:
However, this can only be accomplished if the target branch doesn't have any
changes of its own.
If the target branch /does/ have changes that are not in the source branch, Git
will attempt to merge the trees and will create a merge commit (assuming all
went well). If a merge conflict arises, the user will need to correct it, and
attempt to re-apply the merge, the resolution of the merge will be in the merge
commit. For more information on merging, see the
[[man-git-merge][~git-merge(1)~]] documentation.
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center
#+HTML:
#+NAME: fig: Git parent merge
[[file:/media/git-resolve-merge.png]]
#+HTML:
** Summary
Git is not the most complicated version control system out there, and I hope
peering into the internals of Git demonstrates that fact. If anything, it may
seem that Git is very simplistic and unintelligent. But this is actually what
gives Git its power. It's simplistic (recursive) object storage is what gives
Git super powers. Git can infer file renames, branching is trivial, merging is
similarly easier, the storage and tree model are well understood concepts and
the tree and graph algorithms are well studied.
However, this simplistic approach to storage also has a few problems. Tracking
binary files tends to be expensive because Git isn't storing the difference,
but each version of the file in its entirety. The zlib compression library
also isn't always amazing at compressing binary files either.
Beyond these problems, Git is a very powerful and capable source control tool.
*** References
- [[git-scm][Git SCM Site]]
- [[git-scm-book][Apress: Pro Git]]
- [[wiki-zlib][zlib compression]]
- [[so-git-pull-considered-harmful][StackOverflow: Cases ~git-pull~ could be considered
harmful]]