Question 1

How do I delete a branch in Git?

Accepted Answer

In a typical Git repository you may have a couple of permanent branches, such as `master` and `development` that are constantly worked on, but also a number of branches that are temporary, for things like bug fixes, new features, or versions of your project. Lots of developers choose to delete th...

Question 2

How can I remove a large file from my commit history?

Accepted Answer

If you've committed a large file to your repository that takes up a large amount of disk space, simply removing it in a commit will not actually help. This is because Git doesn't actually fully delete the file when you remove it from your working directory. It'll be stored in Git's history incase...

Question 3

How to resolve merge conflicts

Accepted Answer

When working on a Git repository, you may run into an issue where you try to pull from the remote, but the code cannot be automatically merged into your working copy, due to conflicts between the two versions. ### Identify affected files Firstly, you'll need to identify the files that are affecte...

Question 4

How to move a subdirectory into a separate Git repository

Accepted Answer

It may be useful to detatch or move a subdirectory in your repository, out to an external repository, especially if you want to re-use the contents of said subdirectories across multiple repositories. You can then commit and push updates to the subdirectory separately, and any other repositories ...

Question 5

How can I change the author of multiple Git commits?

Accepted Answer

If you change your local commit author information, such as your name or email address, you may then wish to change the author of several older commits in your repository as a result. There are several ways of doing this, but in this guide we'll look at updating everything after a specific commit...

Question 6

How are "git fetch" and "git pull" different?

Accepted Answer

When it comes to updating your repository with changes that have been pushed to the remote copy by other members of your team, you'll be able to use one of two commands: * [`git fetch`](#fetch) * [`git pull`](#pull) We'll look at the differences between them and why you'd choose one over the othe...

Question 7

What is a "detached HEAD" in a Git repository?

Accepted Answer

You may find yourself in an odd state when working on your repository. When working on it, running `git status` might return the following output: ```bash $ git status HEAD detached at 8fd3350 nothing to commit, working tree clean ``` This means that at some point, you've run `git checkout` on a ...

Question 8

How can I edit my last commit message?

Accepted Answer

You may find you've just created a new commit, but you want to modify the message. Simply navigate to your project's directory via the command prompt, and type the following command, followed by the enter key: ```bash $ git commit --amend ``` You'll be redirected to your text editor to edit the m...

Question 9

How can I revert a Git repository to a previous commit?

Accepted Answer

You may find you're in a situation where you need to revert the repository to a previous commit. This can be done using the following command: ```bash $ git revert 8fd3350cf6 ``` Where `8fd3350cf6` is the old commit you're reverting _back to_. You'll be prompted to review and add a commit message...

Question 10

How do I undo the most recent local commits in Git?

Accepted Answer

You may find that you need to undo several recent commits in your repository. You can do so using the following command: ```bash $ git reset --hard HEAD~3 HEAD is now at d240853 Initial commit ``` Where `~3` represents the number of commits you wish to undo. You'll then see that the HEAD of your ...

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