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Cloning a GitHub Repository to Your Local Machine

Objective: By the end of this exercise, you'll have a copy of your GitHub repository on your local computer and be set up to start using Git.

Prerequisites:

  • Have a GitHub account.
  • Have a repository on GitHub you wish to clone (you can use your Simpsons one from the last homework).
  • Have Git installed on your computer. If you have a relatively new computer, it should already have git on it. If not – and we'll find out pretty quickly! – we can download and install it from download and install Git.

1. Access the Repository on GitHub

  • Navigate to GitHub at https://github.com/.
  • Log in to your account if you're not already logged in.
  • Go to your repository's main page.

2. Get the Repository URL

  • On the main page of your repository, you'll find a button labeled "Code" with a dropdown arrow (the green button over towards the right, not the <> Code tab on the upper left).
  • Click on this button. You'll see a URL (it should end in .git).
  • Copy this URL. You'll use it to tell Git which repository you want to clone.

3. Open the Terminal

  • For older Windows users: (the Windows version, not you) Search for "Git Bash" or "Command Prompt" from the Start menu and open it.

  • For macOS, recent Windows, and Linux users: Open the "Terminal".

4. Navigate to the Directory Where You Want to Clone the Repository

  • Use the cd command to navigate to your desired location. For example, if you want to navigate to a directory called "projects" in your home directory, you'd type:

    $ cd ~/projects

A note on file organization: Some people prefer to have a "git" or "GitHub" folder under their home folder and keep each repo in there (each repo will have its own folder). Others might prefer to have, for example, "R_Projects" and "Python_Projects" directories in their home directory, and have the corresponding repos in there. How you organize your files is up to you, but the key word is organize! The more organized you are now, the more future you will love past you (who is currently current you – isn't time travel fun?).

5. Clone the Repository

  • Use the git clone command followed by the URL you copied from GitHub:

    $ git clone [URL]

    Of course, replace [URL] with the actual URL you copied. For example:

    $ git clone https://github.com/lkcormack/i-hate-statistics.git

6. Confirm the Repository Has Been Cloned

The cloning operation will have created a new directory in the directory from which you did the git clone ....

  • Navigate into the newly cloned directory. For example:

    $ cd Documents/GitHub/i-hate-statistics

  • Now, if you run the ls command (or perhaps dir on Windows), you should see any files or directories that were in your GitHub repository.

    $ ls

If you do an

$ ls -a

you will see that there is a hidden .git folder in your repo. This is where the magic happens. Do not touch!*

7. Set Up Your Identity (Only if it's your first time using git)

  • To ensure that your commits are properly attributed to you, set up your git identity. Replace Your Name with your actual name and youremail@example.com with your email:

    $ git config --global user.name "Your Name"
$ git config --global user.email "youremail@example.com"

Conclusion: You've successfully cloned a repository from GitHub to your local machine! You're now ready to start making changes, committing them, and eventually pushing them back to GitHub.