Git Usage Notes

Stuff that I'm always having to look up.

git rebase

When working in your branch and you want to bring it up to date with main:

$ git rebase -s recursive -X ours main          # Resolves conflicts in favor of main.
$ git rebase -s recursive -X theirs main        # Resolves conflicts in favor of your local branch.

When in the middle of a rebase and you want to resolve a conflict use the checkout command.

$ git checkout --ours path/filename     # Resolves conflicts in favor of the branch being placed into your local branch.
                                        # In other words, if you were performing 'git rebase main' the conflict is resolved in favor of main.
$ git checkout --theirs path/filename   # Resolves conflicts in favor of your local branch prior to rebasing.

git merge and git pull

$ git merge -s recursive -X ours <branch-name>          # Resolves conflicts in favor of local branch copy.
$ git merge -s recursive -X theirs <branch-name>        # Resolves conflicts in favor of <branch-name>.
$ git pull  -s recursive -X ours origin <branch-name>   # Resolves conflicts in favor of local branch copy.
$ git pull  -s recursive -X theirs origin <branch_name> # Resolves conflicts in favor of origin/<branch_name>

When in the middle of a merge/pull and you want to resolve a conflict use the checkout command.

$ git checkout --ours path/filename     # Resolves conflicts in favor of the local copy
$ git checkout --theirs path/filename   # Resolves conflicts in favor of the branch being merged in to your local copy.

git commit splitting

• Start an interactive rebase with

$ git rebase -i <commit>^

Where <commit> is the commit to change (or the last commit in a list to change), and ^ indicates that the rebase will start one before the <commit>.

• Mark the commit(s) you want to split with edit.
• Start editing that commit:

$ git reset HEAD^       # The HEAD and the index are rewound by one.

• git add the changes to the index that you want to have in the first commit.
• git commit the changes to the index.
• Repeat the last two steps until your working tree is clean.
• Continue the rebase with

$ git rebase --continue

git clean and untracked files

$ git clean -d                  # Remove untracked directories
$ git clean -x                  # Remove ignored files
$ git clean -f                  # Don't ask stupid questions, do it!
$ git clean --dry-run           # Tell me what will happen, but don't actually delete anything.
$ git clean -i --interactive    # Interactive mode.
$ git ls-files --others         # List files not under git version control.

git pulling changes from local repositories

In this example add the repository ~/repo2 as a 'remote' in the repository cloned into ~/repo1 :

$ cd ~/repo1                            # Working from within the scope of repository 1
$ git remote add repo2 ~/repo2          # Add the cloned repository in ~/repo2 as a remote for the repository in ~/repo1
$ git fetch repo2                       # Update the remote repo2 into repo1
$ git merge repo2/foo                   # Operations can be performed using the repo2 repository

git cat

There is no git cat, but there should be. Figuring out how to do this is horrific. Just do this:

$ git show <HASH>:path/file
$ git show <branch>:path/file

Note that when performing this command the file specified might be in your local directory. Git will insist you use the relative path ./ prefix before the file name. The git command line guidance is very helpful here.

git log, ecluding paths

Full description in Stack Overflow

$   git log -- . ':(exclude)sub/sub/file'