My Git config at work

Motivation

I use Git at work a lot. The problem is that naturally the same commands come again and again. After a while I got really tired to type the same stuff over and over.

The Files

In the following I want to show my current configuration files for Git and my MinGW bash shipping with it that really save me a lot of typing and increase my efficiency. I will first show all needed files and then speack about it.

# ~/.gitconfig
[user]
    name = username
    email = username@company.org
[credential "therepourl"]
    username = username
[alias]
    revbr = "!f(){ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/"$@";}; f"
    adda = add --all
    br = branch
    ci = commit
    st = status
    lg = log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit
    # shell functions for automated submodule update
    co = "!f(){ git checkout "$@"; git submodule update;}; f"
    pu = "!f(){ git pull $1; git submodule update;}; f"
[gitreview]
    remote = origin
[color]
    ui = true
[diff]
    tool = meld
    guitool = meld
    submodule = log
[merge]
    tool = meld
[mergetool "meld"]
    prompt = false
    keepBackup = false
    keepTemporaries = false
    path = c:/Program Files (x86)/Meld/Meld.exe
[status]
    submoduleSummary = true
[push]
    default = matching
[commit]
    template = ~/.gittemplate
[credential]

helper = store

[core]

autocrlf = true

# ~/.bashrc
if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi

export PATH=$PATH:"/c/Program Files (x86)/CMake/bin"

PS1='\n\[\033[32m\]\u\[\033[0;35m\]@\[\033[33m\]\w\[\033[36m\]` __git_ps1 `\[\033[0m\]\n[ \[\033[0;31m\]\# (\!)\[\033[0m\] ] \$ '

# ~/.bash_aliases
# Make python interpreter work in shell
alias python='winpty python.exe'

# Shorthand for git add
alias ga='git add'

# Shorthand for git add interactively on each file (prompt)
alias gai='git ls-files --modified | xargs -n1 -r -p git add'

# Shorthand for git branch
alias gb='git branch'

# Shorthand for clear; git branch
alias cgb='clear; git branch'

# Create new branch from current HEAD
alias gcb='git checkout -b'

# Shorthand for git diff
alias gd='git diff'

# Shorthand for git status
alias gs='git status'

# Shorthand for git status with option porcelain (easy parsing)
alias gsp='git status --porcelain'

alias only_modified='grep '"'"' M '"'"' | cut -d '"'"' '"'"' -f3'  #noprint
alias do_add='xargs -n1 git add'  #noprint
alias filter='egrep -v "criteria1|criteria2|..."'  #noprint
alias add_modified='gsp | only_modified | do_add'  #noprint
alias filter_add_modified='gsp | only_modified | filter | do_add'  #noprint
# Execute git status but clear screen first
alias cgs='clear && git st'

# Clear screen and execute git status, then pipe it through a custom filter to show only relevant files
alias fcgs='cgs | filter'

# Shorthand for git commit
alias gci='git commit'

# Shorthand for git commit --amend
alias gca='git commit --amend'

# Shorthand for git checkout
alias gco='git co'

#new command
alias gru='git remote update'

# Shorthand for checking out the develop branch
alias gcod='git co develop'

# Automatically add all modified files (from the index) that pass through the custom filter
alias gfa='filter_add_modified && cgs'

# Show the history of this branch, i.e. just the commits since the branching off develop
alias glb='clear && git lg develop..HEAD'

# Show the last 10 commits as concise and decorated graph
alias glg='clear && git lg -n10'

# Revert all file changes that only affect whitespace
alias grw='git diff -b --numstat | egrep $'"'"'^0\t0\t'"'"' | cut -f3- | xargs git checkout HEAD --'
alias lsalias="clear && cat ~/.bash_aliases | grep -v '#noprint' | cut -d ' ' -f2- | /usr/bin/gawk -f ~/color.gawk"  #noprint
alias resource='source ~/.bashrc'  #noprint

# ~/.gittemplate
Ticket-xxx: xxx

xxx


Changes

    * xxx

Author: Tobias Pleyer
        The Company XYZ
        some other info

Disussion

The workhorse commands of Git are without a doubt git status, git checkout, git add and git commit with differing optional parameters. These are most likely amongst everyone’s “Top 5 Git commands”. I got them covered with cgs, gco, ga, gci. Counting keystrokes (no tab complete, spaces included) this gives a speed up of exactly 300%! And these commands I type a lot! The c in cgs stands for clear and is a handy addition which clears the terminal screen before showing Git’s status, this ensures maximum overview.

Because I use a lot of aliases I chose to not spam my .bashrc with it, but instead move them to a separate file, .bash_aliases, which is sourced (included) by .bashrc. This allows for another handy trick: I wrote myself an aliases to list my aliases. Typing lsalias will list the contents of .bash_aliases, including comments, but only those that do not have a #noprint at the end of the line. That way I can hide irritating helper code and show the import stuff. Most of the aliases are self explanatory. Because I work a lot on our development branch I wrote an extra alias to switch to it: gcod (git checkout develop). In general the pattern for all aliases is to use the first letter of every involved word if possible. That way typing the command while mumbling it comes automatic and helps to remember them.

Two more things: In my .gitconfig file I registered a template for commits. That comes handy if all (or most) of your commands have a common structure. I work with Vim as my editor and made myself a map which maps F5 to a search for xxx and F6 to jump to the next find result, delete it and enter edit-mode. Thus the placeholder xxx can be quickly filled with meaningful text. At work we have auto-generated stuff which is only committed for releases, but not during development. These files should not be git add’ed and are cluttering the output of git status. Hence I wrote myself commands, fcgs and gfa, which filter these files away. This is quite useful to avoid mistakes.