Revision as of 05:17, 12 October 2009

Introduction to Git

This guide is aimed at those who are migrating to Git from other version control systems like CVS and SVN, in order to understand some of the differences between the types of SCM system. There are other on-line resources on Git (such as the Pro Git Book and the git tutorial) which this doesn't compete with; rather, it's a summary of the concepts which will be useful to those migrating. Since this is also documentation hosted as part of the EGit project, there will likely be specific call-outs to functionality available in that tool.

This is not meant to be an advocacy piece on using Git over other version control systems; there are other sites (like why git is better than x) that cover that perspective. In addition, Git is not the right choice of tool for everyone; Google Code chose Hg over Git for entirely pragmatic reasons (in part due to Git's heavy HTTP implementation, which is currently being addressed). In any case, it is assumed that you want to use (or learn about) Git in this document rather than attempting to influence your choice.

Distributed version control systems

Tools

The Git infrastructure actually holds together by using a common on-disk [#Repository] format which tools know how to interact with, rather than there being a specific library (like, for example, libsvn). As a result, whilst most commands are invoked via git, in fact many of these are not actually part of the git executable but rather external programs which are subsequently launched. For example, git add actually ends up invoking git-add to do the work.

Repository

Communication

Terminology

• Plubming
• Porcelain
• Tip
• Tree

See also gitglossary.