The repository for new hackers to practice git cloning, branching, committing, pushing, pulling, and merging, all things you'll probably be doing in GitHub for this or future hackathons!
After finishing the exercise here, you'll understand the basics of using git in the command line and will have an idea of how to use git with your hackathon project.
This exercise won’t go into how git works and its full terminology, there are plenty of online resources for that such as
You’ll may want to have a rough idea of the following before getting started
- Version control
- Commits
- Branches
- Remote vs local branches
Keep in mind the IDE of your choice likely has nice UI versions of git that may be easier to understand and use when actually hacking, feel free to use those for this exercise as well, but in the end those are also just sending git command line commands. So if you learn it with the command line it will be easy to understand what's going on with the UI.
Finally, if you have any questions, ask them in #git-workshop-help on the RootHacks Discord! We specifically designed this exercise to be done on your own time so that if you ever get stuck you can ask questions or do some searching and not get lost.
For the remainder of this exercise, any text that is formatted like this means that you should be putting those commands in the command line/temrinal.
- Install Git
- The process will vary depending on your operating system, doing a search of “Install git [your operating system here]”
- You’ll know it’s done when you type
git --versionand it tells you your git version and doesn’t give an error
- Open your terminal and navigate to somewhere you want to put all the git files for this exercise.
a. In your terminal, you can navigate with
cd <address to the folder> - Clone this repository with
git clone https://github.com/ssss-sfu/RootHacksGitWorkshop.git - Navigate to the repository folder with
cd RootHacksGitWorkshop - DM Joshua (Jugblue#2169) your github username/email so I can add you to the repository so you can make your changes and see them on here.
- Create a branch using
git checkout -b <name-of-your-branch>- it can just be your git username, note no space are allowed, so use your favourite space delineation technique
- This branch name will be visible to everyone is the repository so don’t name it your SSIN or anything else you don't want everyone to see
- In the folder, create a .txt file in the git folder and write a message in it, also feel free to edit the basic
helloworld.pyandhelloworld.htmlfiles. - Once you have completed your changes, go back in your git terminal, use
git add <names of the files you edited/created here> - Create a commit with your newly added files with
git commit -m “<A descriptor of what you changed here>” - Push your local commit to the remote with
git push.
The following files are considered uneditable as changes to them will prevent you
from completing the upcoming pull request section.
- /.github/
- /.gitignore
- /test_importantCode.py
- /README.md
Congratulations! If you did everything correctly, you should be able to see your branch on https://github.com/ssss-sfu/RootHacksGitWorkshop and see the file you added to it.
- Go to the pull requests tab in this GitHub Repository and select "Create Pull Request"
- Select your branch
- Hit "Create Pull Request"
- GitHub will make notes of any merge conflicts (in the situation where you edited a line that someone else edited) a. You can fix them manually, or your favourite IDE has tools that can make the process easier
- Once there are no conflicts, you can create a merge request, and then approve the merge request
- Congrats! The code you made is now on the main branch! And the changes you made didn't interfere with anyone else's development.
A regression is when a new change to a codebase causes a new problem. Services like GitHub and GitLab provide ways to run checks on pull requests that automate the discovery of problems (such as coding style) and failed tests.
If you look at your pull request, you may notice that there are green checkmarks next to the individual commits. Click the checkmark to see the different jobs that were run to make sure that your changes didn't introduce a regression in test_importantCode.py.
- Go back to your IDE terminal and checkout back to main branch, then update it to the latest version.
git checkout main && git pull
- Create a new branch with whatever alphanumeric name you want.
git checkout -b aaaaaaa1111111
- Create a bug in
importantCode.pyand save it.- For example, returnsOne() shouldn't return 2.
- Commit
importantCode.pyand push it, just like from step 8. - Repeat the Pull Requests section. You will see that GitHub will reject your pull request if you correctly broke the code.