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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Table of Contents

Introduction

This document will be an "aide memoir" of things that I learn/need to remember about how to use GitHub. Leading up to me creating this document, I found I kept looking up how to do the same things. This is my attempt at generating a cheat sheet for a relative "newbie" to GitHub.

I'm specifically using GitHub for open-source projects. There are some that I've contributed to, some that I've got under my own account, and one that I setup as an "organisation" (though I'm no longer involved).

Create A New Repository

To create a new repository under your own account:

  1. Log in to the GitHub website
  2. From your user's homepage click on the Repositories tab.
  3. Click on the New button.
  4. Fill in all the details on this page then click the Create Repository button

This will create a repository on the website. You need to clone it to your desktop before you can do much with it.

Cloning A Repository

To get a copy of the repository from your account on the website to your desktop so you can work on it:

  1. In the Git Shell Powershell client, navigate to the the parent directory of where you want to clone into. E.g.:
C:\> cd e:\Git
E:\Git>
  1. Enter git clone followed by the URL on the repository's main page:
E:\Git> git clone https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/github-cheat-sheet.git
Cloning into 'github-cheat-sheet'...
remote: Counting objects: 3, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
E:\Git>
  1. You can now cd into the new directory:
E:\Git> cd .\github-cheat-sheet
E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [master]>

Create A New Branch

It's always best to work on a dedicated branch for each piece of work. This is because after you submit a pull request on a branch, anything else that gets committed to that branch up until the pull request is merged will get included with that pull request. To create a new branch and switch to it:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [master]> git checkout -b add-first-steps
Switched to a new branch 'add-first-steps'
E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps]>

Notice the branch name is included in the prompt.

The logic here isn't very intuitive. It seems to be that checkout is used to switch branches and -b is used to create a new branch.

Seeing what's changed

After making changes, the prompt will change:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps +0 ~1 -0]>

To see which files have changed, use git status:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps +0 ~1 -0]> git status
On branch add-first-steps
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)

        modified:   README.md

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

To see the details of what's changed, use git diff:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps +0 ~1 -0]> git diff
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 39404d9..aff977e 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,2 +1,62 @@
-# github-cheat-sheet
-Things I've learnt/need to remember about how to use GitHub
+[![Creative Commons Licence](https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/+This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](http://creativecommon+
+# Table of Contents
...

Stage a file ready to commit

Before a file can be committed, it must be staged. Do this with git add. To add all files, use git add .. Note git status now shows the files as 'staged':

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps +0 ~1 -0]> git add .
E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps +0 ~1 -0]> git status
On branch add-first-steps
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

        modified:   README.md

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps +0 ~1 -0]>

Commit a file

To commit a file, use git commit:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps +0 ~1 -0]> git commit
[add-first-steps f4bb875] test
 1 file changed, 62 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
 rewrite README.md (100%)

A text editor will appear for you to enter your commit message

Push a branch up to GitHub

After committing locally, you need to push the branch to GitHub to see the changes on there. To do this, you do:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps]> git push

If the branch was created locally and doesn't exist on GitHub yet, you'll get an error the first time you do this:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps]> git push
fatal: The current branch add-first-steps has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin add-first-steps

In this case, simply run the command it gives you:

E:\Git\github-cheat-sheet [add-first-steps]> git push --set-upstream origin add-first-steps
Counting objects: 6, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Writing objects: 100% (6/6), 2.40 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 6 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.
Branch add-first-steps set up to track remote branch add-first-steps from origin.
To https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/github-cheat-sheet.git
 * [new branch]      add-first-steps -> add-first-steps

Delete A Branch

After you've finished with a branch, you can delete it. You need to delete it locally and on GitHub.

To delete it locally:

E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git branch -d bring-up-to-date
Deleted branch bring-up-to-date (was 1ccb22f).

To then delete it remotely:

E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git push origin --delete bring-up-to-date
To https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/7zBackup.git
 - [deleted]         bring-up-to-date

Keeping Inline With Upstream

We need to keep our fork in sync with changes made to the original, the "upstream". Firstly, check to see if upstream has been set:

E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git remote -v
Isiweb  https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup.git (fetch)
Isiweb  https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup.git (push)
origin  https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/7zBackup.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/7zBackup.git (push)

WE can see here, it hasn't, so we need to set it:

E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git remote add upstream https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup

Now, if we check again:

E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git remote -v
Isiweb  https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup.git (fetch)
Isiweb  https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup.git (push)
origin  https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/7zBackup.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/7zBackup.git (push)
upstream        https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup (push)

To update from upstream, we need to fetch then merge. To get that back up to GitHub, we then push it:

E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git fetch upstream
From https://github.com/Isiweb/7zBackup
 * [new branch]      master     -> upstream/master
E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git checkout master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
Already on 'master'
E:\Git\7zBackup [master ≡]> git merge upstream/master
Updating 2c7da64..e2de313
Fast-forward
 7zBackup-vars.ps1 |   2 +-
 7zBackup.ps1      | 195 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------
 2 files changed, 137 insertions(+), 60 deletions(-)
E:\Git\7zBackup [master ↑2]> git push
Counting objects: 7, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (7/7), done.
Writing objects: 100% (7/7), 3.46 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 7 (delta 4), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (4/4), completed with 3 local objects.
To https://github.com/PaulWalkerUK/7zBackup.git
   2c7da64..e2de313  master -> master