Project Summary

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Get familiar using git and GitHub

We'll go through three short exercises to get you comfortable with the workflow you'll be using with git in throughout this course.

Our first exercise will show you the steps you'll take when you first start a project using git.

• Creating a repository
• Linking a remote repository to the repository on your local computer
• Pushing changes to GitHub

The second exercise will show you the steps you'll take with most of the projects in this course. You'll ...

• fork the BoomCamp repository
• Link your local repository to your fork
• Push your changes up to GitHub

The third exercise will have you mimicking the workflow that you would typically encounter working on a software development team. You'll...

• Create a repository
• Create a branch off of the master branch
• Make changes to the newly created branch
• Create a pull request from your new branch to the master branch

Exercise 1: Personal Repository

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Step 1:

Summary - We will create a repository on GitHub

Instructions

• Go to GitHub

• Sign in to GitHub

• Create a new repository

  

• Give the repository any name you like, make the repository public

• Do NOT initialize the repository with a README

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Step 2:

Summary - We will connect a local repository to the remote repository we just created on GitHub.

Instructions

• Create a folder named myFirstRepo.

• Go into that folder.

• Inside the folder create a file called bands.txt.

• Add a name of a band to the bands.txt file.

• Save your bands.txt file.

• Open a terminal window.

• cd into your project folder.

  cd ~/myFirstRepo
  
  # your repository may be in a different location
  # than this example

• Run the following commands inside the myFirstRepo directory

  git init

  The init command creates a hidden folder and files that enable git to start tracking changes within your project directory. many git commands will not work if they are not run within a directory that git has been initialized within.

  See the official documentation for more info: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-init

• Run

  git remote add origin $YOUR_REPOSITORY_URL
  
  # Replace $YOUR_REPOSITORY_URL with the actual URL your repository is located at.
  # You can find your repository URL by navigating to
  # the repository you made earlier on GitHub and copying the address.

  

  The remote add command takes two arguments a $REMOTE_NAME, in this case it is named origin this is by convention in git. We are telling our local repository that it originates from the remote repository url we specified as the second argument.

  Doing this we are linking the repository on our computer to the repository located on GitHub, this will allow us to push changes to the remote repository when we are ready.

  See the official documentation for more info: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-remote

Step 3:

Summary - We push some code from our local repository to our remote repository on GitHub.

Instructions

• Open a terminal window and navigate into the myFirstRepo directory

• Run

  git status

  This will show what files have been changed. This is how we determine what we've changed and what we want to add to a commit.

  See the official documentation for more information: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-status

• Run

  git diff

  This will show the code line-by-line that has changed. This is a good way to inspect changes at a more granular level.

  See the official documentation for more information: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-diff

• Run

  git add bands.txt

  This adds the bands.txt file and all of the changes made to it into the staging area. Files added to the staging area are not yet committed but their state has been saved, this will make more sense after the next command.

  See the official documentation for more information: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add

• Run

  git commit -m "This is a commit message"

  This takes all of the file(s) in the staging area and creates what is called a commit. A commit is a snapshot of your code. The commit command is what tells git to create that snapshot.

• Run

  git push origin master

  This syncs or pushes the commits you've made to your local repository to your remote repository. Be sure to include origin master, this tells git which branch you want to push to, and it will create the branch if it does not already exist in the remote repository.

• Go to the repository on GitHub and see the updates made to your repository.

Exercise 2: Existing Repository

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Step 1:

Summary - We will fork this tutorial repository

Instructions

• Scroll to the top of this repository and look for the fork button

  

• Click the fork button

  This will copy all of the code from this repository and make an identical repository in your GitHub account. Because you are not the owner of this repository you would not be able to push code changes directly to it. A fork allows you to make changes to your copy (the fork) and then make a request to the repository owner to merge those changes.

Step 2:

Summary - We will take the forked repository and clone it to our local computer.

Instructions

• Go to the forked version of this repository in your GitHub account. It will be located under the Repsitories tab in you GitHub profile.

  

• Click the green clone or Download button and copy the URL

  

• Open your terminal and navigate to any directory you can copy files to (Desktop is a good place to practice)

• Run

  git clone $REPO_CLONE_URL # $REPO_CLONE_URL would be the URL you copied from GitHub

  This clones (copies) the remote repository to your local computer. It will create a new directory and copy all the files from the remote repository, along with all of the git information. This means you will not need to run git init in this cloned directory.

Step 2:

Summary - We will make changes to the cloned repository and push the to GitHub.

Instructions

• Open the newly cloned directory in you IDE or code editor
• Make a change to a file
• Go through the steps outlined in exercise 1, git {status,diff,add,commit,push}

  Because this repository was cloned we do not have to go throught the step of telling git where the remote is located. Remember git remote add origin $YOUR_REPOSITORY_URL. We do not need to do this in this case because git clone sets this for us automatically.

Exercise 3: Collaborating with others

Summary - Practice makes perfect, we will repeat the process of the second exercise and learn a few new git commands that help us collaboratively write code.

Step 1:

Summary - Re-clone this repository and create a new branch

Instructions

• Delete the directory that is the clone of this repository on your local computer.

• Re-clone the fork to your computer.

• cd into the cloned git repository

• Context: Lets say we are responsible for adding a new page to our website. A common workflow utilizing git would involve creating a new branch that would contain all of that new work. You're probably wondering why we would want to do that. The idea behind it is that we don't want to pollute the master branch with our changes before those changes are finished. This also prevents other team members that are working on our website from having to deal with all the new code we are writing before it is finished. This is extremely valuable to software teams, it makes it much easier for many people to work on the same software at the same time. Now let's create a new branch!

• Run

  git branch

  This lists all of the branches of this repository. The currently active branch will have an asterisk by it. We aren't going to get too deep into what exactly branches are in git, but a basic understanding is helpful at this point. You can think of branches like the branches coming off of a tree, the master branch can be thought of as the root of the tree. In most cases branches will be created off of the master branch and then merged back into the master branch when the desired changes have been completed. This is difficult to wrap your mind around at first but becomes more clear after some practice.

  git branch add-about-page

  This creates a new branch named add-about-page

Step 2:

Summary - Checkout our new branch and make some changes.

Instructions

• Run

  git checkout add-about-page

  This changes the currently active branch to add-about-page. At this moment the master branch and add-about-page branch are identical, meaning neither contains any changes that the other branch does not contain. Once we start to modify the add-about-page branch we would say that the add-about-page branch is ahead of the master branch. Let's now make some changes on our new branch.

  touch about.html # create new file
  git status # you should see about.html as an untracked file

  Now go through the steps in the previous exercises to stage and commit this new file to your branch. Don't push the branch yet.

• Once you have committed this new file you'll want to push this branch to your remote repository so you can create a request to merge this new branch back into the master branch with your changes. If you try to push this branch right now you'll be met with an error git push. You'll notice that git tells you there is no upstream branch for add-about-page. I you remember back to previous exercises you may recall that push trys to push you local changes to the remote repository. What git is telling you in this case is that the remote repository has no branch named add-about-page, so git is not sure what to do. To fix this case we can tell git create the remote branch and set the remote branch as the upstream to our local branch.

• Run

  git push --set-upstream origin add-about-page

• Now your new branch should be visible on GitHub.

Step 3:

Summary - Make a pull request from our new branch to the master branch

Instructions

• Our new branch is now on GitHub. Let's create a pull request from the new branch to the
• Open the page for your fork of this repository on GitHub
• Click on the Pull requests tab
• Click on the green New pull request button
• Change the compare branch to the new add-about-page branch
• Click green Create pull request button
• Navigate back to the original repository, go to pull requests and you should see your request there
• Congratulations you've created your first pull request