Globally Configure Git

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$ git config --global user.name "username"  
$ git config --global user.email "email@you.com"

username usually represents the local username used for commits
email@you.com is typically the email address

Initialize a local repository

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$ git init  

After execution, a hidden .git folder is created locally containing the git information

Clone a remote repository

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$ git clone git@github.com:sunyazhou13/sunyazhou13.github.io.git

Check the current repository status

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$ git status

The git status command displays the current status of the repository, including added, modified, and deleted files

Version management

HEAD points to the latest version in git, HEAD^ refers to the previous version, HEAD^^ the one before that, and HEAD~100 means 100 versions back

Stage local changes

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//add all modifications in the current directory
$ git add .  

//to add specific files, you can do it like this
$ git add A B C // separated by spaces
//if some files are marked red, it means they are not under git management yet, you can use rm -rf xxx to delete them
//if some files are marked yellow, it means they have been modified
//if some files are marked green, it means they have been added to git management

Commit

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$ git commit -am "[产品名称][迭代名称] 1.修改点 2.修改点xxx"
	

Push to the git repository

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$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master
	

If this is the first commit, use git push -u origin master

Track the branch when pushing

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$ git push --set-upstream origin + 分支名

If the commit is rejected

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$ git fetch origin master
$ git reset --soft origin/master
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "some comments"
$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master

Go back to the local repository and run the commands

Branch management

Create a branch and switch to it

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$ git branch -b 分支名

Switch branches

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$ git checkout 分支名

To view remote branches: git branch -r, where r stands for remote

Merge branches

$ git merge br-name merges the br-name branch into the current branch Adding --no-ff disables the fast-forward mode, meaning a new commit is created instead of just moving the HEAD pointer $ git merge --no-ff -m "merge with no-ff" dev Before merging, you can use git diff <source_branch> <target_branch> to view the differences between the two branches

Merge conflicts

When merging branches, if two branches make different modifications to the same place, a conflict occurs. For conflicting files, git generates the following content:

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<<<<<<< HEAD 
Creating a new branch is quick & simple. 
======= 
Creating a new branch is quick AND simple. 
>>>>>>> feature1

After resolving the conflict and completing the merge, remember to run:

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$ git rebase --continue

Force-update a tag to a specific commit

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git tag --force v1.0.0 bc63359
git push --tags -f

git ll shows the short version number. If it doesn’t work, run the script below and try again

The following are commonly used git aliases

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git config --global alias.ll "log --graph --all --pretty=format:'%Cred%h %Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative" 
git config --global alias.co checkout 
git config --global alias.br branch 
git config --global alias.ci commit 
git config --global alias.st status 
git config --global alias.last 'log -1 HEAD' 
git config --global alias.df diff
git config --global alias.co checkout

Reference for detailed information

Batch delete local branches

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git branch | grep 'branchName' |xargs git branch -D

This uses shell pipe commands to delete branches in batch. grep matches the output of git branch against the pattern branchName. xargs converts the argument list into small chunks and passes them to other commands. So this command means: Match the specified branches from the branch list, pass them one by one (in small chunks) to the delete command, and finally delete them. This achieves the goal of batch-deleting branches.

For example, if I want to delete all local branches starting with 5.8., I can write:

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git branch | grep '5.8.*' |xargs git branch -D

Just use a wildcard pattern

Updated on September 30, 2018

Continuous updates

Use git clean to remove files that are not under git version control

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git clean -dfx  

2020.1.7 update

Remove the small Xcode userdata file that keeps getting tracked despite being in .gitignore

Recently this file keeps appearing in my project; no matter how I add it to .gitignore, it never takes effect

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Crown.xcworkspace/xcuserdata/sunyazhou.xcuserdatad/UserInterfaceState.xcuserstate

Here is the correct operation:

Replace ` [project] ` with your project name and ` [username] ` with your username

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git rm --cached [project].xcodeproj/project.xcworkspace/xcuserdata/[username].xcuserdatad/UserInterfaceState.xcuserstate
git commit -m "Removed file that shouldn't be tracked"

Updated on 2022.12.2, from Can’t ignore UserInterfaceState.xcuserstate

If you need .gitignore templates for various languages, refer to A collection of useful .gitignore templates

Squash Multiple Commits

In Git, the rebase command moves a series of commits from one branch to another while preserving their order and content. git rebase -i is an interactive variant that allows you to edit the commits. Here are the steps to squash multiple commits into a single one using git rebase -i HEAD~N:

1. Determine how many commits to squash:
   • HEAD~N means N commits back from the current commit. You need to determine the value of N, i.e., the number of commits you want to squash.
2. Start the interactive rebase:
   • Open a terminal or Git Bash and switch to your Git repository directory.
   • Enter git rebase -i HEAD~N, replacing N with the number of commits you determined.

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git rebase -i HEAD~3

Squash the latest 3 commits

1. Edit the commit list:
   • This opens a text editor listing all commits from HEAD~N to the current HEAD.
   • You will see a pick command before each commit. You can edit these commands to decide what to do with each commit.
2. Squash the commits:
   • To squash commits, change pick to squash or s (the shorthand for squash) for all commits except the first one. In this way, all the other commits are squashed into the first one.

   • For example, if you have the following commit list:

     1 2 3

     pick 3f3f3f3 第一个提交信息 pick 4b4b4b4 第二个提交信息 pick 5c5c5c5 第三个提交信息

     You should change them to:

     1 2 3

     pick 3f3f3f3 第一个提交信息 squash 4b4b4b4 第二个提交信息 squash 5c5c5c5 第三个提交信息

     pick serves as the base starting point

3. Edit the commit message:
   • After saving and closing the editor, Git will squash the selected commits and open another editor for you to edit the new commit message.
   • You can either keep the first commit’s message or edit a new one that summarizes all the squashed commits.
4. Finish the rebase:
   • After saving and closing the commit message editor, Git will complete the rebase and update your commit history to a new linear history.

Please note that rebasing is a destructive operation that changes the hashes of historical commits. Therefore, you should only use it when you are sure it won’t affect other people’s work, especially on public branches. If you work in a team, it’s best to communicate with your teammates before performing such an operation.

Handling Large Files

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brew install git-lfs                                 # install via homebrew
git lfs install                                      # initialize lfs for yor repo
git lfs track ios-app/Frameworks/*.framework/**/*    # track all frameworks in your project.  *.xcframework
git add --all                                        # stage
git commit -m "Added files to git lfs"               # commit
git lfs ls-files
git push

Git Access Credentials

You can use any of the following solutions:

Option 1: Enable system credential management (recommended)

• macOS:

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	git config --global credential.helper osxkeychain

• Windows:

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git config --global credential.helper manager

Updated on April 4, 2026

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