Git Team Workflow

Summary

The idea is to create a copy of the master (stable branch) which will be called develop.
Each time you decide to introduce a feature or make significant changes you create your branch with a descriptive name.
When your feature is complete and tested, merge with the develop branch.
The master branch will act as the clean stable release which we will merge from the develop branch once we’ve collectively reviewed the changes.

Workflow Commands

Do a git pull on the develop branch before creating your branch so you work on an upto date copy

# use the develop branch
git checkout develop

# the default origin is 'master' so specify origin as 'develop' for the pull request
git pull origin develop

Create your branch as a copy of the develop branch

# the -b flag tells git to create the branch if doesn't exist
git checkout -b <branch-name> develop

# view branches (you will see an asterix on your working branch)
git branch -a

Work on your branch and commit your changes.
Push your branch to the repo if required

git push <branch-name>

Merging with the develop branch

# move into develop branch
git checkout develop

# ensure you have the latest copy
git pull origin develop

# do the following if you have multiple commits in your branch
# the --squash flag removes all commit messages and gives you the opportunity to  
# commit to the develop branch with a single commit message
# otherwise all commit messages will be imported to the develop branch

git merge –-squash <branch-name>

# adding [branch-name] to develop branch
git commit -m ‘one line comment'

Update your git config file if required

# location: .git/config

Change url field to include username i.e:
url = https://<username>@github.com/haani-niyaz/teamworkgit.git

Once merging is complete push to the develop remote branch

git push origin develop

Using Tags

Tags can be used to setup versions. You can also use it to capture working states of the code.


# display tags
git tag

# create a tag i.e: v1.0
git tag v1.0 -m "Added new feature1"

# push to remote
git push origin v1.0


# switch to the point in time of using a tag
git checkout v1.0

# delete a tag locally
git tag -d v1.0

# delete a remote tag
git push origin :v1.0

Useful Commands

Push all branches to remote repositories

git push -all

You can do the following to check what is different between the remote and local:

# fetch remote branch within local branch
git fetch 

# compare changes
git diff ..origin/develop

Switching to a remote branch



# fetch remote branch(es)
git fetch

# result

  develop
  feature/PA-337-deploy-noarch-rpms/haani
  master
* test/r10k/haani
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/develop
  remotes/origin/feature/PA-333-create-rpm-recipe/sam
  remotes/origin/feature/PA-337-deploy-noarch-rpms/haani
  remotes/origin/feature/PA-588-cap-prefix-environments-with-platform/haani
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/test/r10k/haani


# checkout remote branch
git checkout feature/PA-588-cap-prefix-environments-with-platform/haani

Comparing 2 branches


# show the changes
git diff develop..bug_fix

# only shows which files have changes
git diff --name-status develop..bug_fix

Comparing a file between 2 branches


git diff bug_fix master -- app/views/layout.blade.php

Deleting a branch


# deleting a local branch
git branch -d bug_fix

# deleting the corresponding remote branch (if it has been pushed)
git push origin :bug_fix

Rename git branch

git branch -m old_branch new_branch         # Rename branch locally    

git push origin :old_branch                 # Delete the old branch    

git push --set-upstream origin new_branch   # Push the new branch, set local branch to track the new remote

Reverting Git Commits

Many ways to do this see this post

I generally tend to do the following:

If code has been published (pushed) already, then fix your mistake and recommit.
If you make a commit locally and instantly realize it's wrong, you can do the following:

Updating the commit message

# This will present the previous commit message in the editor
git commit --amend

Updating an existing commit

git log --oneline 
8b35fe6 test.txt updated
fe1ba6f Initial commit

# Update and add text.txt to staging area
git add text.txt

# This will present the previous commit message in the editor
git commit --amend

git log --oneline
8b35fe6 test.txt updated. Fixed minor spelling mistake.
fe1ba6f Initial commit

Reverting to an older commit (Recommended Way):

git log --oneline
c655bfc Revert "This is the second commit"
475f323 This is the second commit
c50df81 This is the first commit
91a9376 Revert "Initial commit"
d6f4efd Added content to file3
4fe192e 6th commit.Added file3.txt
fe1ba6f Initial commit

# Reverting back to the old commit
git revert --no-edit fe1ba6f..HEAD

Other ways of doing it:

If the commit was an old commit made locally then:

# This will go back to commit 2858eb3
git reset --hard 2858eb3

Warning The above will literally delete all commits that came after 2858eb3 which also means you will loose any unsaved work.

To save working change before doing a reset:

# Make sure your WIP files are added to the staging area first
git add --all 
git stash
git reset --hard 2858eb3
git stash pop