Darrin Thompson noticed when he was showing off GIT to others
that the use of filenames "a" and "b" in the tutorial example
was unnecessarily confusing, especially with our "patch -p1"
prefix a/ and b/, without giving us any patch. I was very
tempted to change them back to l/ and k/ prefixes, but decided
to restrain myself and update the tutorial instead ;-).
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
@ -104,8 +104,8 @@ Start off with just creating any random files that you want to maintain
@@ -104,8 +104,8 @@ Start off with just creating any random files that you want to maintain
in your git archive. We'll start off with a few bad examples, just to
get a feel for how this works:
echo "Hello World" > a
echo "Silly example" > b
echo "Hello World" >hello
echo "Silly example" >example
you have now created two files in your working directory, but to
actually check in your hard work, you will have to go through two steps:
@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ adding a new entry with the "--add" flag (or removing an entry with the
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ adding a new entry with the "--add" flag (or removing an entry with the
So to populate the index with the two files you just created, you can do
git-update-cache --add a b
git-update-cache --add hello example
and you have now told git to track those two files.
@ -155,11 +155,11 @@ regular file), and you can see the contents with
@@ -155,11 +155,11 @@ regular file), and you can see the contents with
which will print out "Hello World". The object 557db... is nothing
more than the contents of your file "a".
more than the contents of your file "hello".
[ Digression: don't confuse that object with the file "a" itself. The
[ Digression: don't confuse that object with the file "hello" itself. The
object is literally just those specific _contents_ of the file, and
however much you later change the contents in file "a", the object we
however much you later change the contents in file "hello", the object we
just looked at will never change. Objects are immutable. ]
Anyway, as we mentioned previously, you normally never actually take a
@ -180,11 +180,11 @@ However, since git knows about them, you can now start using some of the
@@ -180,11 +180,11 @@ However, since git knows about them, you can now start using some of the
most basic git commands to manipulate the files or look at their status.
In particular, let's not even check in the two files into git yet, we'll
start off by adding another line to "a" first:
start off by adding another line to "hello" first:
echo "It's a new day for git" >> a
echo "It's a new day for git" >>hello
and you can now, since you told git about the previous state of "a", ask
and you can now, since you told git about the previous state of "hello", ask
git what has changed in the tree compared to your old index, using the
"git-diff-files" command:
@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ git what has changed in the tree compared to your old index, using the
@@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ git what has changed in the tree compared to your old index, using the
oops. That wasn't very readable. It just spit out its own internal
version of a "diff", but that internal version really just tells you
that it has noticed that "a" has been modified, and that the old object
that it has noticed that "hello" has been modified, and that the old object
contents it had have been replaced with something else.
To make it readable, we can tell git-diff-files to output the
@ -202,14 +202,14 @@ differences as a patch, using the "-p" flag:
@@ -202,14 +202,14 @@ differences as a patch, using the "-p" flag:
which will spit out
diff --git a/a b/a
--- a/a
+++ b/a
diff --git a/hello b/hello
--- a/hello
+++ b/hello
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
Hello World
+It's a new day for git
ie the diff of the change we caused by adding another line to "a".
ie the diff of the change we caused by adding another line to "hello".
In other words, git-diff-files always shows us the difference between
what is recorded in the index, and what is currently in the working
@ -243,10 +243,10 @@ creating the equivalent of a git "directory" object:
@@ -243,10 +243,10 @@ creating the equivalent of a git "directory" object:
and this will just output the name of the resulting tree, in this case
(if you have does exactly as I've described) it should be
3ede4ed7e895432c0a247f09d71a76db53bd0fa4
8988da15d077d4829fc51d8544c097def6644dbb
which is another incomprehensible object name. Again, if you want to,
you can use "git-cat-file -t 3ede4.." to see that this time the object
you can use "git-cat-file -t 8988d.." to see that this time the object
is not a "blob" object, but a "tree" object (you can also use
git-cat-file to actually output the raw object contents, but you'll see
mainly a binary mess, so that's less interesting).
Committing initial tree 3ede4ed7e895432c0a247f09d71a76db53bd0fa4
Committing initial tree 8988da15d077d4829fc51d8544c097def6644dbb
just to warn you about the fact that it created a totally new commit
that is not related to anything else. Normally you do this only _once_
@ -293,13 +293,13 @@ instead, and it would have done the above magic scripting for you.
@@ -293,13 +293,13 @@ instead, and it would have done the above magic scripting for you.
Making a change
---------------
Remember how we did the "git-update-cache" on file "a" and then we
changed "a" afterward, and could compare the new state of "a" with the
Remember how we did the "git-update-cache" on file "hello" and then we
changed "hello" afterward, and could compare the new state of "hello" with the
state we saved in the index file?
Further, remember how I said that "git-write-tree" writes the contents
of the _index_ file to the tree, and thus what we just committed was in
fact the _original_ contents of the file "a", not the new ones. We did
fact the _original_ contents of the file "hello", not the new ones. We did
that on purpose, to show the difference between the index state, and the
state in the working directory, and how they don't have to match, even
when we commit things.
@ -362,19 +362,19 @@ in the working directory that we want to commit, and we always have to
@@ -362,19 +362,19 @@ in the working directory that we want to commit, and we always have to
work through the index file, so the first thing we need to do is to
update the index cache:
git-update-cache a
git-update-cache hello
(note how we didn't need the "--add" flag this time, since git knew
about the file already).
Note what happens to the different git-diff-xxx versions here. After
we've updated "a" in the index, "git-diff-files -p" now shows no
we've updated "hello" in the index, "git-diff-files -p" now shows no
differences, but "git-diff-cache -p HEAD" still _does_ show that the
current state is different from the state we committed. In fact, now
"git-diff-cache" shows the same difference whether we use the "--cached"
flag or not, since now the index is coherent with the working directory.
Now, since we've updated "a" in the index, we can commit the new
Now, since we've updated "hello" in the index, we can commit the new
version. We could do it by writing the tree by hand again, and
committing the tree (this time we'd have to use the "-p HEAD" flag to
tell commit that the HEAD was the _parent_ of the new commit, and that
@ -585,7 +585,7 @@ create your own copy of the git repository, you'd do the following
@@ -585,7 +585,7 @@ create your own copy of the git repository, you'd do the following
@ -683,12 +683,12 @@ being the same as the original "master" branch, let's make sure we're in
@@ -683,12 +683,12 @@ being the same as the original "master" branch, let's make sure we're in
that branch, and do some work there.
git checkout mybranch
echo "Work, work, work" >> a
git commit a
echo "Work, work, work" >>hello
git commit hello
Here, we just added another line to "a", and we used a shorthand for
both going a "git-update-cache a" and "git commit" by just giving the
filename directly to "git commit".
Here, we just added another line to "hello", and we used a shorthand for
both going a "git-update-cache hello" and "git commit" by just giving the
filename directly to "git commit".
Now, to make it a bit more interesting, let's assume that somebody else
does some work in the original branch, and simulate that by going back
@ -696,13 +696,13 @@ to the master branch, and editing the same file differently there:
@@ -696,13 +696,13 @@ to the master branch, and editing the same file differently there:
git checkout master
Here, take a moment to look at the contents of "a", and notice how they
Here, take a moment to look at the contents of "hello", and notice how they
don't contain the work we just did in "mybranch" - because that work
hasn't happened in the "master" branch at all. Then do
echo "Play, play, play" >> a
echo "Lots of fun" >> b
git commit a b
echo "Play, play, play" >>hello
echo "Lots of fun" >>example
git commit hello example
since the master branch is obviously in a much better mood.
@ -734,20 +734,20 @@ of it as it can automatically (which in this case is just merge the "b"
@@ -734,20 +734,20 @@ of it as it can automatically (which in this case is just merge the "b"
file, which had no differences in the "mybranch" branch), and say:
Simple merge failed, trying Automatic merge
Auto-merging a.
Auto-merging hello.
merge: warning: conflicts during merge
ERROR: Merge conflict in a.
ERROR: Merge conflict in hello.
fatal: merge program failed
Automatic merge failed, fix up by hand
which is way too verbose, but it basically tells you that it failed the
really trivial merge ("Simple merge") and did an "Automatic merge"
instead, but that too failed due to conflicts in "a".
instead, but that too failed due to conflicts in "hello".
Not to worry. It left the (trivial) conflict in "a" in the same form you
Not to worry. It left the (trivial) conflict in "hello" in the same form you
should already be well used to if you've ever used CVS, so let's just
open "a" in our editor (whatever that may be), and fix it up somehow.
I'd suggest just making it so that "a" contains all four lines:
open "hello" in our editor (whatever that may be), and fix it up somehow.
I'd suggest just making it so that "hello" contains all four lines:
Hello World
It's a new day for git
@ -756,7 +756,7 @@ I'd suggest just making it so that "a" contains all four lines:
@@ -756,7 +756,7 @@ I'd suggest just making it so that "a" contains all four lines:
and once you're happy with your manual merge, just do a
git commit a
git commit hello
which will very loudly warn you that you're now committing a merge
(which is correct, so never mind), and you can write a small merge