Git: more newbie questions

[ninetydegrees]

1) If you're working on bug A on branch A then want to work on completely unrelated bug B on branch B, do you need to stash you changes on A checkout develop then create branch B?

Answer: yes, but see comments about using git commit and git commit --amend in your workflow.

2) When can you use git diff? Before add only? Because otherwise it gives me nothing and I have to use git status -v.

Answer: possibly with git diff --cached or git diff HEAD^ HEAD (untested)

3) Oh I feel so stupid for asking this but how do you get out of git diff or git log on PuTTY? Ctrl+C and Ctrl+X don't work.

Answer: the magic key is 'q' and this is related to PAGER and not PuTTY

4) If you're working on bug A on branch A and have reached a point where you want to do some more work but be easily able to revert to where you were before, what is the best route? Several commits? Creating a subbranch A1 (is that possible?)? Is that where merge is useful? I'm having the hardest time understanding how merge can be used concretely.

Answer: several commits is indeed the best route; the concept of 'subbranches' isn't valid.

5) In git config, is there a way to reset the value of core.editor to whatever is the default on your computer (without naming the editor)?

Answer: yes, with git config --global --unset core.editor

Comments

[dereckson]

(1) This is right. Or you can commit your work on bug A and amend the commit later. My current workflow is something like:

git checkout -b bug/a
#fixing bug A
#oh, I now have to work on B
git commit
git checkout -b bug/b
#fixing bug B
git commit
git checkout bug/a
#fixing bug A (end)
git commit --amend


commit --amend should only use for local changeset, and not on already pushed somewhere else changesets to maintain consistency.

Side note: if you clutter your branch with unmerged changes, for example doing a git pull in A to rebase against master for example, you won't be able to leave A easily. git merge --abort will help.

(2) You can try stuff like git diff --cached or git diff HEAD^ HEAD
(HEAD^ is HEAD minus a version)

(3) This isn't a PuTTY-related question, but a PAGER one.

Some commands are sent to more (or less), softwares to allow to browse up and down contents.

To quit, the key to use is 'q'.

(4) I would do several commits, this produce a clean interface.

You will even be able to merge all these commits into one with git merge when you leave the branch.

By the way, subbranch isn't a valid concept: branches aren't path of codes, but more bookmarks indicating the changesets to work with.

You'll get more information on the concept of branches in the following document:
http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists/

(5) I think in this case the default value would be your EDITOR environment variable (echo $EDITOR).

So your question become "how to remove core.editor setting from git config?".

I'm not sure for this one, but I would try git config --unset core.editor.

[yvi]

Thank you for asking these questions, by the way! I won't have time to do any coding before the weekend, but I will almost certainly run into scenario 1 and 4 at some point :)

[momijizukamori]

I'm glad you ask these things so I don't have to *g*