It is context sensitive, so Git will merge any pulled commits into the branch you are currently working in. Git pull automatically merges the commits without letting you review them first. However, fetch + merge could be repetitive, as we would synchronize local/remote branches multiple times a day. So far, we’ve been working with local branches, i.e on our machine. Time to learn how to work with remote branches, which are synced with remote repositories on the internet.
- To begin, let’s branch off of main and create our own feature branch to work on.
- This string of characters and numbers is called the SHA—it’s the unique ID generated by a hashing algorithm for this commit.
- A file in the staged state means it is ready to be committed.
The image above shows our main branch with the last two commits (the first commit and the added new task commit). With branches, you can create a copy of a file you would like to work on without messing up the original copy. You can either merge these changes to the original copy or just let the branch remain independent. You are not limited to using Git just for source code files – you can also use it to keep track of text files or even images. This means that Git is not just for developers – anyone can find it helpful.
Step 5 : That’s all well and good… But How do I download and work on other repositories on GitHub?
When you click on the button, you should see some options in a dropdown menu. To test this, don’t worry about switching to a new computer. If you are a beginner, you will come across some new terms like push, commit, add, and so on – but do not be overwhelmed by them.
With some practice you will be able to remember these terms and what they do. GitHub is an online hosting service for Git repositories. Imagine working on a project at home and while you are away, maybe at a friend’s place, you suddenly remember the solution to a code error that has kept you restless for days. After installing VS Code, open your project in the editor and open a new terminal for your project. This automatically points the terminal/command line to your project’s path. I spent the first many years of my career just using memorized commands and workflows.
Understanding the Fundamentals of Git
To receive any new information about the repository we have to ask for it again. We see the one line we inserted into chapter-3.txt—signified by a + sign at the start of the line and the green background which signifies an addition to the file. Now that we have our branch on GitHub, we can create a pull request to be reviewed by our teammates. A merge, like it sounds, tries to take the contents of one branch and apply (or “merge in”) those changes into another branch.
It’s best practice to provide a detailed message of what changes you made—and more importantly—why you are committing these changes. Next, we need to finalize the commit by using git commit. To do this, we create a new commit to signify this milestone. Each commit gets its own unique identifier, and the order of the commits are preserved. Now that we understand the initial state of our project, let’s make some changes and look at the result. We’ll go into more detail here as we make changes, but this message is basically saying we haven’t done anything—so no changes to report.
Intro to Git for Web Designers
Alice already knows everything that leads to her current state (HEAD),
and reviews what Bob has in his state (FETCH_HEAD) that she has not
seen with this command. The Git directory is where Git stores the metadata and object https://remotemode.net/become-a-front-end-developer/git-fundamentals/ database for your project. This is the most important part of Git, and it is what is copied when you clone a repository from another computer. When you do actions in Git, nearly all of them only add data to the Git database.
This merges the changes from Bob’s master branch into Alice’s
current branch. If Alice has made her own changes in the meantime,
then she may need to manually fix any conflicts. If a particular version of a file is in the Git directory, it’s considered committed. If it has been modified and was added to the staging area, it is staged.