Fun With Git

Programming

The goal of this blog is to have some fun with git and learn something along the way…

Note:
The commands provided should work in all MacOs and Linux based terminals. Some should also work on windows based machines, but
might need some adjustments. Don’t ask me, I don’t want to do it 😄.

What is git?

By far, the most widely used modern version control system in the world today is Git. Git is a mature, actively maintained open source project originally developed in 2005 by Linus Torvalds, the famous creator of the Linux operating system kernel
Quote from Atlassians site

I think that most developers are active users of git nowadays or at least they should be 😂.

Work before play

Before we can have some fun we need to understand the basics commands a bit. Feel free to skip this section if you already
use git a lot. You will be familiar with all the commands I’ll explain here. Just go to the fun part 🖖.

Command Description
git init initializes a new git repository in the current folder
git add <file or folder> Adds a change to the list of changes to be committed to the repository
git commit -m "message" Commits the changes to the local repository
git pull Pulls the changes from the remote repository to the local repository
git push Pushes the local changes to the remote repository
git checkout -b <branch_name> Checkout a branch, witch to it and create it if necessary

These are some of the most used commands. If you want to know more (and there is much more) I would recommend the following
sites:

Now to have some fun with it.

All play no work

Some commands are often done in combination like:

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git init && touch README.md && git add README.md && git commit -m "Init repo" --allow-empty

To create an new repository from the current directory and add an empty README.md file to it and commit it so we start clean.

or 

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git add --all && git commit -m "Development commit" && git push

To add all changes and new files to the commit list and commit them and push them to the remote repository.

This is no fun 😢 it’s a pain in the ass to type these commands constantly so where is the fun in that…

Well here it goes…

Git alias

Git has this fantastic thing called alias and you can do fun things with it. It is one of the lesser known features of git but
worth learning.

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git config --global alias.edit "config --global -e"

Will add a git alias to the global config of git making editing the global config easy. This is one of the commands I
always forget and now I just have to type git edit and I’ll open the global config in my preferred editor.

If you have added this command and do the git edit global config is opened and you will see a new section in that file called [alias].
You can of course add commands there to without using the git config --global alias.[...] part.

More fun

git it

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git config --global alias.it \
   "!git init && touch README.md &&  echo '.idea\n*.iml\nnode_modules\n.DS_Store\ntarget' > .gitignore &&  git add .gitignore  && git add README.md && git commit -m 'Initialized git repo' --allow-empty"

So the command git it will now perform this command, which creates a new git repo from the current folder and adds a .gitignore and a README.md file while doing it.
Note the ! in the command. It will cause git to perform the whole command and not add the command to the git as parameters.

git alias

list all git alias commands

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git config --global alias.alias config --get-regexp ^alias\.

git grog

A fantastic command if I do say so myself 😂. this command will show in a graph like show the commits even with the branches and stuff… in full technicolor yeah!!

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git config --global alias.grog \
   'log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --all --format=format:"%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C(dim white) - %an%C(reset) %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset)%C(bold yellow)%d%C(reset)%n %C(white)%s%C(reset)"'

git rmb

Delete a remote branch…

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git config --global alias.rmb "push origin --delete"

git files

This command will show all files changed in a commit. You can use git grog go get the commits and use this command to show the changed files.

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git config --global alias.files diff-tree --no-commit-id --name-only -r

e.g. git files 667f2d4

Fun git configs

  • Allow all Git commands to use colored output, if possible
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git config --global color.ui auto
  • When branching off a remote branch, automatically let the local branch track the remote branch
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git config --global branch.autosetupmerge true

Fun git shell scripts

The scripts below provide useful and fun git extensions…

Just cut and paste them into a shell script on your path and make them executable chmod +x <file>

git_dump_all_versions_of_a_file

Sometimes you just want all the versions ever made in your repository of a file…

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#!/bin/sh
ROOT_FOLDER=$(\git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
CURR_DIR=$(pwd)
if [ "$ROOT_FOLDER" != "$CURR_DIR" ]
then
  echo "Switch to the root of the repo and try again. Should be in $ROOT_FOLDER"
  exit
fi

cd $ROOT_FOLDER
FILENAME=$*
EXTENSION="${FILENAME##*.}"

HASHES=$(\git log --oneline --decorate $FILENAME | coln.sh 1)
INDEX=1

for HASH in $HASHES
do
  INDEX_OUT=$(printf %03d $INDEX)
  OUT_FILENAME="$FILENAME.$INDEX_OUT.$HASH.$EXTENSION"
  echo "saving version $INDEX to file $OUT_FILENAME"
  git show $HASH:$FILENAME > $OUT_FILENAME
  let INDEX=INDEX+1
done

git_track_all_remote_branches

Sometimes you do not only want to clone the repository but also track all its branches…

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#!/bin/sh
git branch -r | grep -v grep | grep -v '\->' | while read remote; do git branch --track "${remote#origin/}" "$remote" ;done

git_tag_all_repos

Sometimes you want to add a tag to all the repositories in a certain projects folder and push these tags to the remote…
This script assumes you have all projects for a client in a projects folder.

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#!/bin/sh
if [ -z "$1" ]
then
   echo "Please provide a tag name..."
   exit 1
fi
find . -type d -depth 1 -exec echo "Gitting: {}" \; -exec git -C "{}" tag "$1" \; -exec git -C "{}" push --tags \;

git_update_all

Every morning I want to update all my projets for a client before I start working…
This script assumes you have all projects for a client in a projects folder.

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#!/bin/sh
find . -type d -depth 1 -exec echo "Git pulling: {}" \; -exec git -C "{}" pull \;

Feedback

If you have more fun commands or ideas… Feedback always welcome.