Start Using Git on the Command Line Like a Pro in Five Minutes

A quick tour of basic Git commands

You write code every day, right? Why not write Git commands like a code instead of clicking over to your GUI tool?

OK, you need some time to familiarize yourself, but once it happens, you’ll be more efficient than ever.

I’m going to show you some basic Git commands and their features. This isn’t another Git documentation, though.

Git Status

The git status command shows what the full status is, where the HEAD is, and what the changes are (staged, not staged, untracked files).

Once you’re familiar with the long output, you might use the git status --short to see the minified result:

Manipulate the Changes

Here’s a list of some commands that allow you to manipulate the changes:

• git add file— adds the file file to the stage section
• git restore file— discards changes to the file
• git restore --staged file— removes the file from the stage section

The file may be replaced with any file or directory path you want to modify.

Inspecting the diffs

• git diff — displays the not-staged changes in your working tree
• git diff --staged — displays the staged changes
• git diff dev — displays changes between the working tree and the dev branch. You might use a commit hash or tag instead.
• git diff master..dev — displays changes between the branches master and dev

You might pass a path to a file or directory as an additional argument to filter the diffs to a specified path.

If you only want to inspect the file names, use the --name-only switch. If you need to know which files were modified, added, or deleted, use the--name-status switch.

Committing