Git on the command line

[Update]: When dealing with multiple repositories I now use what's described in: http://pydev.blogspot.com.br/2012/07/git-multiple-repos.html

Yes, sometimes I still use the command line for git (even with EGit getting better).

This is an update to a previous post about git (with msysgit).

[Update] October 31st, 2011: Improved gitdd command a bit
[Update] February 6th, 2012: Adedd command to preview incoming changes on a branch

1. Configure running shell

Usually I use TCC/LE as a shell, so, there's an alias to start the git bash shell from it (tcc allows editing the a 4START.BAT which will run when it's started, so, the configuration may be added there):

alias gitshell=path_to_git/bin/sh.exe --login -i

Other aliases:

alias git1=git log --graph --oneline --decorate

Shows the log with nice graph.

1a Use pageant/plink so that the password does not need to be entered all the time

Download pageant/plink, set environment variable GIT_SSH to the plink location, start pageant and load the private ssh key with pageant.

1b Global git configurations

git config --global user.name "fabioz"
git config --global core.autocrlf input

2. Fix history behavior

I find it annoying that the default history completion behavior (when up/down is used) is always getting the previous command instead of completing based on what's already there. To fix that, create a .inputrc file in your user home directory and set the following contents to it:

## By default up/down are bound to previous-history
## and next-history respectively. The following does the
## same but gives the extra functionality where if you
## type any text (or more accurately, if there is any text
## between the start of the line and the cursor),
## the subset of the history starting with that text
## is searched (like 4dos for e.g.).
## Note to get rid of a line just Ctrl-C
"\e[B": history-search-forward
"\e[A": history-search-backward

$if Bash
## F10 toggles mc on and off
## Note Ctrl-o toggles panes on and off in mc
"\e[21~": "mc\C-M"

##do history expansion when space entered
Space: magic-space
$endif

## Include system wide settings which are ignored
## by default if one has their own .inputrc
$include /etc/inputrc


3. Diff changes

Using mu-repo (https://github.com/fabioz/mu-repo/) with WinMerge.

3a. WinMerge tree view

I also always like to see things as a tree in WinMerge (Menu view > Mode: Alt+V M) and also expanded (Menu view > Expand All Subfolders: Alt+V X). It'll store the configuration to show as tree, but unfortunately it needs to be expanded all the times when doing a compare (i.e.: no auto-expand).

4. Show things in a compact way

git config format.pretty "%h %ct %ad %Cgreen%aN%Creset %s"
git config log.date short

#Make git log show comments wrapped.
git config --global core.pager 'less -r'

5. The commands used to get the contents of a pull request (create local branch, merge, get dev, merge with dev):

git checkout -b PullFromBranch-dev development
git pull https://github.com/pull_from_user/Pydev.git PullFromBranch
git checkout development
git merge PullFromBranch-dev --no-commit --no-ff

Then, to accept the merge do a commit or to reject it do:
git merge --abort
or
git merge --reset


6. When creating a feature in a branch:

git checkout -b FeatureBranch-dev development
git checkout development
git pull FeatureBranch-dev --no-ff


7. Preview incoming changes:

Create a bash file with the contents below (usually just hardcoding the ${current-branch} to the development branch). The command below will create 2 branches from the current branch, update one of those, diff it, compare with external tool and revert changes again.

echo Saving local changes just in case... git stash apply may be done later!
git stash
git checkout -b preview-branch
git checkout -b preview-branch2
git pull origin ${current_branch}
git checkout preview-branch
git merge --no-ff --no-commit preview-branch2
gitdd
git reset --hard
git checkout ${current_branch}
git branch -D preview-branch
git branch -D preview-branch2


8. Common commands

git status
git commit -a -m "Message"
git push origin master
git checkout
git shortlog -4 -w
git log -n 6
git log -n 3 --format=full
git commit --amend (change last commit message)
git show (see what happened on a commit)

And some of the commands I had to discover how to use in the msysgit bash are:

Alt+Space+E+K: mark contents for copy
Insert: paste contents
Alt+Backspace: erase until whitespace


Doing a merge:

Steps: create a new branch based on the current development, pull the merge request into that branch, then checkout the development branch, merge it there without commiting (to do a proper review) and then accept or reject the merge.

git checkout -b branch_to_do_merge_dev development
git pull https://github.com/user/Pydev.git jonahkichwacoders:branch_to_do_merge
git checkout development
git merge branch_to_do_merge_dev --no-commit --no-ff

Then, to accept the merge do a commit to reject it do:
git merge --abort
or
git merge --reset

Git (and Folder compare with Git with WinMerge)

[Update] there's a new post with instructions for configuring git at: http://pydev.blogspot.com/2011/02/git-on-command-line.html

In case it was missed, Pydev is now on Git :)

I'm finding it the hard way that unfortunately its eclipse integration is still not ready for prime time -- it's missing some basic things such as a synchronize view, and I've had some bugs for it to mark the changed files in the package explorer (so, I'm waiting until it matures a bit to give it another try).

In the meanwhile, I'm using the command line (with the msysgit bash).

The thing I missed most was the synchronize view. A part of my modus operandi is making a review of all the changes before doing a commit -- and editing some things there, so, based on this link, I've created a script -- which I called gitdd -- that will create a directory structure with the HEAD and links to the changed files so that one can change those files in a diff viewer (in this case, WinMerge).

The script is below if anyone wants to use it (note that it must be run in the msysgit bash -- although it should probably work on Linux too, with another diff viewer)


#!/bin/sh -e

# usage: gitdd <path>
# Compares the current differences in winmerge with links to original files.
# Note that it must be executed at the root of the git repository.

SUBDIRECTORY_OK=1

O=".git-winmerge-tmp-$$"
V=HEAD
list="$O/list"
list_exist="$O/list_exist"
trap "rm -rf $O" 0
mkdir $O
mkdir $O/b

git diff $V --name-only -z $1 > $list

/d/bin/Python261/python.exe /c/Program\ Files/Git/bin/gitddpy.py $list $O/b/

cat $list | xargs -0 git archive --prefix=a/ $V | /d/bin/bin-1.0/tar.exe xf - -C $O

/d/bin/WinMerge/WinMergeU.exe //r //u //wr //dl WorkingCopy $O/b $O/a


[Update]
I wanted to create links to the files (so that I could edit them on WinMerge and have the original changed), so, I ended up creating a gitddpy.py to create the link (not sure why git prompt was crashing when using the shell for that -- so, this was the solution that worked for me).

The gitddpy.py contents are:


import sys
print sys.argv

f = file(sys.argv[1])
contents = f.read()
import subprocess
import os.path
for line in contents.split('\0'):
    if os.path.exists(line):
        subprocess.call(['cp', line, '--parents', '-l',
        '--target-directory='+sys.argv[2]], shell=True)
f.close()



[Update]
Configuring Git with the following:

git config format.pretty "%h %ct %ad %Cgreen%aN%Creset %s"
git config log.date short

The commands I use most (using the msysgit Bash) are:

git status
git commit -a -m "Message"
git push origin master
git checkout <path>
git log -n 6 --format="%ct %Cgreen%aN%Creset %s"
git commit --amend (change last commit message)

And some of the commands I had to discover how to use in the msysgit bash are:

Alt+Space+E+K: mark contents for copy
Insert: paste contents
Alt+Back: erase until whitespace

The last thing worth mentioning is that the Pydev releases don't have such a nice unique id as the one that was available with subversion anymore, and it now contains the commit time (%ct in the log format). It's a bit annoying that it's such a big number, but I believe that the other choices were worse (the hash would seem totally random for someone seeing it, and basing it on the number of commits wouldn't work with history rewriting).

To sum things up: yes, I know that not being able to do everything in Eclipse sucks a bit, but hopefully the Git tools for Eclipse will catch up soon -- I'm hoping that having the history offline and not having to worry about renames, as well as the whole idea of decentralized versioning systems pays for this nuisance for now (and I'm certain that when the Eclipse plugin for Git catches up it'll be much better).