Version Control with Git

Creating a Repository

Learning Objectives

Explain how to create a Git repository locally.

( SLIDE 12 - Creating a Repository)

Once Git is configured, we can start using it. Let’s create a couple of directories for our work. One will represent our desktop computer, the other our laptop.

NOT DESKTOP

$ mkdir dtop ltop
$ cd ltop

$ mkdir planets
$ cd planets

and tell Git to make it a repository— A storage area where a version control system stores the full history of commits of a project and information about who changed what, when.

$ git init

If we use ls to show the directory’s contents, it appears that nothing has changed:

$ ls

But if we add the -a flag to show everything, we can see that Git has created a hidden directory called .git:

$ ls -a

.   ..  .git

Git stores information about the project in this special sub-directory. If we ever delete it, we will lose the project’s history.

We can check that everything is set up correctly by asking Git to tell us the status of our project:

$ git status

# On branch master
#
# Initial commit
#
nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track)

A branch is an independent line of development. We have only one, and the default name is master.

Next - Tracking Changes