My most used git aliases
— March 30, 2015
tl;dr short description of my most used git aliases.
In this post I’ll be talking about my most used git aliases in no particular
order. I’m going to throw all of my .gitconfig in here and that’s all.
I believe git is one of the greatest pieces of software ever made. It’s a
functional tool that just works. If you use git on daily basis I bet you type
git at least a hundreds of times a day. Aliases are a way to mitigate some
large, repeated or painful to type commands, they can be added globally (hole
system) or locally (one repo only). I’ll use alias globally on the post.
To add a new alias via command line you’ll do something like this:
git config --global alias.st status
The other way of adding them is by carefully placing the alias directly in
the ~/.gitconfig file in the same way git config --global alias does. All
aliases live under [alias] section on the file.
[alias]
st = status
Let’s start with the aliases…
Change branch
To change branch I have a simple and widely used alias: co an abbreviation for
checkout. It works like this:
git co master
Switched to branch 'master'
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.co checkout
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
co = checkout
Start new work
Start working on a new feature, fix, etc… I use git cob <branch-name>. This
is an alias for checkout -b <branch-name> that creates a new branch and moves
to it with a simple command.
git cob test-branch
Switched to a new branch 'test-branch'
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.cob "checkout -b"
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
cob = checkout -b
Review what changed
To check the new state of your current work I use git sts. This is an alias
for status -s that will only show in a simple way which files where modified,
deleted, added, etc… with this simple command.
git sts
M _drafts/my-most-used-git-aliases.md
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.sts "status -s"
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
sts = status -s
Rename branch
Sometimes we name a branch poorly or maybe we thought the name was “good” but
not meaningful to the work we are doing. To rename the branch locally I have a
rename alias for git branch -m. One thing to keep in mind is that this
command works in two different ways if we are on the branch we want to rename we
can just git rename new-name. If we are not on the branch have to use
git rename target-branch new-name.
git rename git-alias
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.rename "branch -m"
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
rename = branch -m
Review which file have conflicts
This has been a really useful command for me. It tells you which files have conflicts after merging. I picked up this command from an @indirect tweet a few months back.
Let’s create a “conflict” in a file to recreate how this command works.
git merge --no-ff hello2
Auto-merging hello
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in hello
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
Now that we have a conflict let’s try the alias.
git conflicts
hello
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.conflicts "diff --name-only --diff-filter=U"
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
conflicts = diff --name-only --diff-filter=U
Diff by words
Diff by highlighting inline word changes instead of whole lines. It’s just a
super simple alias for git diff --word-diff.
Here it shows that the word git was removed and changed by the word got.
git dw
[-git-]{+got+} conflicts
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.dw "diff --word-diff"
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
dw = diff --word-diff
Pretty graph log
Show a pretty graph of commits with short inline message and custom colors. This is a really cool command to review the commit history one of the most useful things anyone could use. It’s a long command that I bet no one could type each time. Color can be modified easily if you dislike them.
git lg
* 4d58be2 - Merge branch 'packer' (4 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
|\
| * 2a3b6ad - Publishing the Packer post (4 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
| * 5323348 - Final draft version (4 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
| * 9aed7c8 - Almost final draft (4 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
| * aceb69e - Updated version of the packer draft (4 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
| * 452a5de - Dropping some content for the packer do draft (4 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
| * be17ffd - Creating the packer draft (5 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
|/
* 6848854 - Missing file name rack-middleware post (6 weeks ago)<Alberto Grespan>
...
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.lg "log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr)%C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit".
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
lg = log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr)%C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit
Unstage files
Remove file from the stage area or unstage files.
git unstage _drafts/my-most-used-git-aliases.md
Unstaged changes after reset:
M _drafts/my-most-used-git-aliases.md
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.unstage "reset HEAD --"
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
unstage = reset HEAD --
Search for occurrences
Searching for occurrences using git grep is a very common task for me. I
normally search for function names, class namespace, variable, etc… This alias
came pretty handy a while a go because I added two flags -Ii to make the
search broader and that makes the command a little bit better for my use case.
Here is how to use it:
git g openssl
_posts/2014-05-13-installing-ruby-the-right-way-on-os-x-using-rbenv.md:Before installing any Rubies ask yourself if you want support for LibYAML, Readline and **OpenSSL** outside of rbenv. Rbenv and its plugins are a mature ecosystem that can solve common caveats in the Ruby installation by downloading, installing and compiling your rubies with the latest **OpenSSL**, LibYAML and if available on your system, Readline.
_posts/2014-05-13-installing-ruby-the-right-way-on-os-x-using-rbenv.md:$ brew install libyaml readline **openssl**
_posts/2014-05-13-installing-ruby-the-right-way-on-os-x-using-rbenv.md:That was really easy... but what if you want to use a custom version of **OpenSSL** or LibYAML?
...
To setup the alias use:
git config --global alias.g "grep -Ii"
Or copy the following into the ~/.gitconfig file
g = grep -Ii
Count commits
Count the commits between two commits. I often find myself wanting to know how much commits in a day or how much commits do I have in a long lived feature branch, this alias helps me with this. This is how this alias works:
git count 452a5de 4d58be2
5
Given that this alias is a function that receives parameters the way I advice to
setup this alias is to copy it directly into the ~/.gitconfig file.
count = "!f() { git log $1..$2 --pretty=oneline | wc -l; }; f"
These are all of my current aliases…
As I said before, some of my used aliases are for repetitive or long commands, not all of them may be really useful but are easier to remember that typing a series of options with a command. Over all I hope these aliases are helpful to you as they are for me.
Thanks for reading!