Inspecting a Repository with status, log

The lifecycle of the status of your files.

Status

$ git status

List which files are staged, unstaged, and untracked.


# Not currently on any branch.
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#   modified:   index.md
#   deleted:    intro.md
#
# Untracked files:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
#
#   history.md
#   intro.md

.gitignore files

Not all files in your project to be tracked on Git for their revisions, For Example lot of intermediate code like .obj, .log files are not needed to be tracked.

.gitignore files are handy ways to do that.

Placed at one of the places

.gitignore at the root folder of the project.
Just go and add files ( pattern ) to be excluded with one pattern per line .git/info/exclude

Note: Generally included in the project root folder.

Lots of useful gitignore templates

https://github.com/github/gitignore/

Very useful command if you have already commited the directory.

$ git rm --cached <path>
$ git rm --cached app/runtime/application.log

git log

Display the entire commit history using the default formatting. If the output takes up more than one screen, you can use Space to scroll and q to exit.

$ git log -n <limit>

Limit the number of commits by . For example, git log -n 3 will display only 3 commits.

Few Options with git log

$ git log --pretty=oneline
$ git log --pretty=short
$ git log --pretty=full
$ git log --pretty=format:"%h - %an, %ar : %s"

This option changes the log output to formats other than the default. A few prebuilt options are available for you to use.

The oneline option prints each commit on a single line, which is useful if you’re looking at a lot of commits In addition, the short, full, and fuller.

More format available http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Viewing-the-Commit-History

$ git log --oneline

Condense each commit to a single line. This is useful for getting a high-level overview of the project history.

git log --stat

Along with the ordinary git log information, include which files were altered and the relative number of lines that were added or deleted from each of them.

git log -p

Display the patch representing each commit. This shows the full diff of each commit, which is the most detailed view you can have of your project history.

git log --author="<pattern>"

Search for commits by a particular author. The argument can be a plain string or a regular expression.

git log <since>..<until>

Show only commits that occur between and . Both arguments can be either a commit ID, a branch name, HEAD, or any other kind of revision reference.

git log --graph --decorate --oneline

Fancy git log

git log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset'

# Make it git alias

Note

Author and Committer The author is the person who originally wrote the work, whereas the committer is the person who last applied the work. So, if you send in a patch to a project and one of the core members applies the patch, both of you get credit – you as the author, and the core member as the committer.