Git Cheatsheet

Here, I list my day-to-day git commands

1. Cherry-pick

This helps in merging a specific commit from one branch to current branch

git cherry-pick <commit-hash>

Where commit-has is taken from "git log"

2. Changing last commit

To change last commit message

git commit --amend

This will open in vi editor, you can change the commit message and then "git push"

3. Changing old commit messages

git rebase -i HEAD~N

where N is the last N no. of commits

you can see all commits using "git log" (console based) or "gitk" (UI)

4. To sync local repository with remote repository

When you clone a repository with git clone , it automatically creates a remote connection called origin pointing back to the cloned repository. You may be confused between "origin", "master", "origin/master"

origin : Central or remote repository name

master : a local branch

origin/master : A remote branch (which is a local copy of the branch named "master" on the remote named "origin"

Now let's say, you are in develop branch, which is ahead of remote develop branch. You may push the code to remote branch, but in case you are not interested to push the local changes and make your local branch in sync with remote develop i.e origin/develop branch.

To do this

git fetch --prune origin
git reset --hard origin/develop
git clean -f -d
git status

git fetch --prune or git remote prune do the same thing: deletes the refs to branches that don't exist on the remote.

git fetch --prune origin will connect to the remote origin and fetch the latest remote state before pruning.

5. Rename a local and remote branch

Switch to the local branch which you want to rename:

git checkout <old-name>

Rename the local branch

git branch -m <new_name>

If you have already pushed the old-name, branch to the remote repository, run below command to rename the remote branch

Push the <new-name>, local branch and reset the upstream branch

git push origin -u <new-name>

Delete the <old-name>, remote branch

git push origin --delete <old-name>

6. Error: cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/release/.....' : 'refs/remotes/origin/release/' exists

Here, we need to update the git reference of the release branch like below

git update-ref -d refs/remotes/origin/release

git pull