Git Tutorial: Committing Files

With git, you almost always commit to the local repository. Then, you “push” to a remote repository, or “pull” from a remote repository.

When using git, you should always cd to your project dir first, as opposed to calling commands then giving full path to your project dir. The current dir is meaingful to many git commands.

Commit to Local Repository

After you made changes to the file, then you can check back in (commit your changes). To commit, cd to the working dir, then do:

# commit one file
git add myFile.py
git commit myFile.py -m "summary of what you changed."

Any file you want to commit, you must first “git add”, even if the file already exists in the repository.

The “add” in git basically means add it to the “index” file for next commit. This “index” file is also called “staging area” or “cache”.

When you commit, git commits the “index” to your local repository.

More examples of commit:

# commit several files
git add file1 file2
git commit . -m "summary of what you changed."

# commit all files whose name ends in “py”
git add *py
git commit . -m "summary of what you changed."

# commiting all files in current dir, including new or deleted file/dir
git add -A .
git commit . -m "summary of what you changed."

The -A option will include any new files in your dir, or files you removed. Basically, it'll commit your working dir as is to the repository.

Use the “rm” command, then commit. The “rm” command is like “add”, in the sense that both changes the staging area.

git rm ‹file name›
git commit ‹file name› -m"summary of change."

git rm -r ‹dir name›
git commit ‹dir name› -m"summary of change."

git will delete the files/dir for you.

If you already deleted the files, you can still call “git rm” to update the staging area, then do a commit.

A better way is simply delete files/dir you don't want, then use the option “-A” in git-add:

# commiting all files in current dir, including new or deleted file/dir
git add -A .
git commit . -m "summary of what you changed."

Push (Commit) to Remote Repository

git push ‹repository address›

This will push your local repository to the remote git server.

Ususually, you use git remote add to associate a name to ther remote server address. Then, you can just push using a name. Like this:

# cd to your project dir
cd ~/git/xah_emacs_init/

# associate a name to a remote server, for the git project of current dir
git remote add github https://github.com/xahlee/xah_emacs_init.git

# push code to the server associated with the name “github”
git push github