GitHub notes

git
code

Notes for simple use of GitHub.

Author

Siobhon Egan

Published

July 30, 2021

GitHub

Getting started on sharing code

GitHub - provides hosting for software development version control using Git. It the industry standard, universal platform to share code and collaborate on projects. GitHub offers plans free of charge but you can also upgrade for extra storage and other special features if you need.

Offical GitHub links

GitHub and RStudio

I highly recommend doing the GitHub lesson on software carpentry

Useful bits

Help: git --help

Initalize a repo: git init

Show status of a repo: git status

Add all files to the staging area: git addd .

Add only certain files to staging area: git add filename.txt

Save the staged content as a new commit into the local repo: git commit -m "message here"

Copy changes from a local repository to a remote repository: git push or git push origin master

Copy changes from a remote repository to a local repository: git pull or git pull origin master

Cloning a repo - make a local copy of a repository: git clone https://github.com/repo/name.git ~/Path/here

Workflow for pushing new repo to github

Quick guide for making a new repository on local machine and pushing it to GitHub.

On local machine

mkdir directory
cd directory
touch README.md
git init

On GitHub make a new repo with the same filename - make sure you create an empty repository. Copy the https link to clip board and go back to terminal on local machine

git remote add origin https://github.com/siobhon-egan/repository.git
git remote -v
git add .
git commit -m "first commit"
git push origin master

Workflow for pulling existing github repo

Quick guide for pulling an existing repo from GitHub to local machine.

On local machine

mkdir directory
cd directory
git init

On GitHub the existing repository in this case is called directory. Copy the https link to clip board and go back to terminal on local machine

git remote add origin https://github.com/siobhon-egan/repository.git
git remote -v
git pull origin master

Git ignore

Some handy git-related functions available in the usethis package.
In particular git_vaccinate() adds ‘.Rproj.user’, ‘.Rhistory’, ‘.Rdata’, ‘.httr-oauth’, ‘.DS_Store’ to your .gitignore file.

It might be handy to made a global .gitignore file to make sure you always ignore certain files (e.g. the .DS_Store)

# make a global .gitignore file
echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore_global
# configure to use this file for all of your repositories
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global