branches-and-tags

A few simple tools for playing with Git branches and tags.

    LICENSE              # MIT License
    README.md            # This README
    define-git-lol       # Convenient alias to show refs and reachable commits 
    git-addfile          # Create, add, and commit files
    git-scratch          # make a scratch repo

Here is a presentation on branches and tags with some exercises.

Descriptions of the three bash scripts follow.

define-git-lol

Define a simple git alias that you can find all over the web.

This script lets you define git lol as a global alias (not confined to one project). The command shows a repository's history, tags, and branches. The display uses ASCII-graphics, so it's fast and you can use it from the command-line.

You can even ssh into a remote server, and type git lol to look at the structure of a remote repo.

git-addfile

Add and commit dummy files.

Useful for quickly creating dummy commit history.

Examples

• git addfile {a..z}: Create 26 files, a through z, and commit all 26 in a single commit.
• for filename in file_{1..16}; do git addfile $filename; sleep 1; done: Create and commit file_1 through file_16, all in separate commits, each with a separate timestamp.

Every file has distinct content and a unique commit message, both tied to the filename.

git scratch

Create a simple playground.

Examples

• git scratch: Create a scratch repo, with one, empty, hidden file, .gitkeep.

For simple experiments with Git and its hidden, .git directory.

• git scratch -b: Create a branched scratch repo with master and davidian branches, each with a distinct README.md (so the two commits conflict).

For playing with branching, tagging, merging, and rebasing.

• git scratch -f: A full system. Create a bare remote, on that "far-away" Git server, localhost, then create two local clones, itchy, owned by Itchy Mouse, and scratchy, owned by Scratchy Cat.

For exploring the full panoply of Git commits, fetches, pulls, pushes, merges, and so on, by multiple users, with a single, bare "server" repo for synchronization, and for comparing and contrasting client and server repos.

The -f option implies -b (the repos are all branched).