Richard E. Silverman - Git Pocket Guide

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Git is a tool for tracking changes made to a set of files over time, a task traditionally known as version control. Although it is most often used by programmers to coordinate changes to software source code, and it is especially good at that, you can use Git to track any kind of content at all. Any body of related files evolving over time, which well call a project, is a candidate for using Git. With Git, you can:

and much more.

There have been many different version control systems developed in the computing world, including SCCS, RCS, CVS, Subversion, BitKeeper, Mercurial, Bazaar, Darcs, and others. Some particular strengths of Git are:

There are already several good books available on Git, including Scott Chacons Pro Git , and the full-size Version Control with Git by Jon Loeliger (OReilly). In addition, the Git software documentation (man pages on Unix) is generally well written and complete. So, why a Git Pocket Guide ? The primary goal of this book is to provide a compact, readable introduction to Git for the new user, as well as a reference to common commands and procedures that will continue to be useful once youve already gotten some Git under your belt. The man pages are extensive and very detailed; sometimes, its difficult to peruse them for just the information you need for simple operations, and you may need to refer to several different sections to pull together the pieces you need. The two books mentioned are similarly weighty tomes with a wealth of detail. This Pocket Guide is task oriented, organized around the basic functions you need from version control: making commits, fixing mistakes, merging, searching history, and so on. It also contains a streamlined technical introduction whose aim is to make sense of Git generally and facilitate understanding of the operations discussed, rather than completeness or depth for its own sake. The intent is to help you become productive with Git quickly and easily.

Since this book does not aim to be a complete reference to all of Gits capabilities, there are Git commands and functions that we do not discuss. We often mention these omissions explicitly, but some are tacit. Several more advanced features are just mentioned and described briefly so that youre aware of their existence, with a pointer to the relevant documentation. Also, the sections that cover specific commands usually do not list every possible option or mode of operation, but rather the most common or useful ones that fit into the discussion at hand. The goal is simplicity and economy of explanation, rather than exhaustive detail. We do provide frequent references to various portions of the Git documentation, where you can find more complete information on the current topic. This book should be taken as an introduction, an aid to understanding, and a complement to the full documentation, rather than as a replacement for it.

At the time of this writing in early 2013, Git is undergoing rapid development; new versions appear regularly with new features and changes to existing ones, so expect that by the time you read this, some alterations will already have occurred; thats just the nature of technical writing. This book describes Git as of version 1.8.2.