Easier use of Git

Friday, June 04, 2010

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Easier use of Git

I'm using Git as the version control system for my projects for some time now. Since the graphical user interfaces are not very mature yet and I like having full control over everything, I'm using Git on the command line (i.e. Bash). In order to avoid entering the same commands all over again, I wrote some Bash aliases and functions which ease the use of Git.

The simplified commands can be downloaded from my Github repository. Instructions for installing and usage can be found in the README.

This is a short summary of the most used commands:

add

Verbose add (executes git add -v and then git status). All parameters will be forwarded to git add.
Example:
add -p foobar.txt

commit

Alias for git commit

gadd

Pipes the output of git ls-files to grep to add only those files that match a given pattern. All parameters (including the pattern) will be forwarded to grep. Like add this command is verbose and calls git status at the end.
Example:
gadd -i '\.java$'

log

Alias for git log

pull

Executes git pull --rebase and then displays all commits since the last pull in a short format.

push

Alias for git push

st

Alias for git status

The commands have been tested unter msysgit, but they should also work on other platforms. A complete list can be found in the README.

In the future I may add further commands. I would appreciate any feedback.

Finally, I want to thank Simon Templer and Simon Thum for their ideas!