Using Git commands that will make you look like a senior developer

As a developer, you probably need Git on a daily basis. There are lots of articles about basic Git commands already that explain it better than I could ever do, e.g. here by KodeHauzInc,herebyGoran Aviani, andherebySaurabh Kulshrestha

Their articles are awesome. Check them out.

This article, however, it’s about advanced git commands that, if you are using them, make it easy for others to believe you are a Git expert. Also, they will help you to increase your productivity. So, even if you are quite comfortable using Git, you still may find this article helpful.

Below are less-known but handy Git commands to boost your productivity and maybe even impress your colleagues.

git checkout -

If you are switching back and forth different branches multiple times, you would have to write git checkout branch-1 and git checkout branch-2 over and over again. Since developers hate repetition you can use git checkout -

So, when switching to the previous branch you just need to write git checkout - . Switching back and forth different branches means, you only have to write git checkout - once every time you want to switch to the other branch. Quite handy, don’t you think?

git add -p

Most likely you have used git add. before. That command means that you add every file you changed to the commit at once. But what if you want to be more selective of what you want to commit? Or what if you want to go one by one of every change you have made before committing?

For this you have git add -p. The -p stands for “patch”. Using git add -p you don’t add all your changes at once but in small “patches” that you can decide whether you want to add to your commit or not. Git will ask you for every patch whether you want to add or not. You decide by typing y for “yes” or n for “no”.

git bisect

Searching for the last working commit can be tedious if you have to check out every single commit. git bisect makes it easy for you to find the last working commit by basically using binary search.

In order to do that, you have to activate git bisect by typing git bisect start. After that, you type in git bisect good for a commit that you know is working correctly. Once you have done that you type in git bisect bad for a commit that you know is not working anymore (usually this is your last commit).

When you write git bisect bad Git will checkout an old commit that is in the middle of your history between the first good commit and the last bad commit until it finds the first bad commit.

git commit --amend

Sometimes you want to change a commit message that you already pushed or you forgot to add a small commit that is so related to your last commit that you don’t want to create a commit of it’s own. In this case you can use git commit --amend .

Using git commit --amend you can either change the last commit message or you can add an additional change to the last commit. If you want to push your changes, though, you have to use git push -f in either case.

git rebase -i HEAD~n

git commit --amend allows you to change the last commit message. What if you want to change a commit message that was made way before that? git rebase -i HEAD~n to your rescue. By typing git rebase -i HEAD~n you can go back to the n th commit and change it by typing edit to the commit you want to edit.

Once you have done and want to save your changes, you have to use git push -f in order to overwrite the changes.

I want to add that using git push -f is not always recommended. The reason I wanted to add this is because using git push -f , the code can become out of synch when multiple people are you working on the same codebase. But the examples I mentioned above are still valid as long as you are working on your own feature branch with you alone as the sole author. No one will be out of synch if you are working alone on a feature branch with only you as the contributor — not even if you merge your feature branch back to the main branch.

Thanks To: Robert Jakob & Level up