Git & GitHub

Question 1

What is a branch?

Answer 1

Branch: A version of the codebase that diverges from the main branch to isolate changes for specific features, fixes, or experiments.

Question 2

What is a commit?

Answer 2

Commit: A snapshot of your changes, saved to your local repository. Each commit is uniquely identified by a checksum.

Question 3

What is the stage?

Answer 3

Stage: The area where Git tracks changes that are ready to be included in the next commit. Files in the staging area are prepared (staged) for the next commit.

Question 4

What is a merge?

Answer 4

Merge: The process of integrating changes from one branch into another, typically the main branch.

Question 5

What is a Pull Request?

Answer 5

Pull Request: A proposal to merge changes from one branch into another, often used in collaborative environments to review and discuss changes before they are merged.

Question 6

What does Fork mean?

Answer 6

Fork: A personal copy of someone else’s project that lives on your GitHub account.

Question 7

What does clone mean?

Answer 7

Clone: The act of downloading a repository from a remote source to your local machine.

Question 8

what does “remote” mean?

Answer 8

Remote: A common repository that all team members use to exchange their changes.

Question 9

what does “origin” mean?

Answer 9

Origin: The default name Git gives to the server from which you cloned.

Question 10

What does “upstream” mean?

Answer 10

Upstream: The original repository that was cloned.
(or in the direction of the original repository that was cloned.)

Question 11

what is master/main?

Answer 11

Master: The default branch name given to a repository when it is created. In modern practice, it is often replaced with “main.”

Question 12

what is a repository?

Answer 12

Repository: A storage location where your project lives, containing all the files and revision history.

Question 13

what is the working directory?

Answer 13

Working Directory: The directory (folder) on your computer where you are making changes to your project.

Question 14

Staging Area

Answer 14

Staging Area: Also known as the “Index,” it’s an area where Git tracks changes that are ready to be committed.

Question 15

Index

Answer 15

Index: Another name for the staging area, where Git tracks changes that are ready to be committed.

Question 16

HEAD

Answer 16

HEAD: A reference to the last commit in the currently checked-out branch.

Question 17

checkout

Answer 17

Checkout: The action of switching from one branch to another or to a specific commit.

Question 18

Push

Answer 18

Push: The action of sending your commits to a remote repository.

Question 19

Pull

Answer 19

Pull: The action of fetching changes from a remote repository and merging them into your current branch.

Question 20

Fetch

Answer 20

Fetch: The action of retrieving updates from a remote repository without merging them into your current branch.

Question 21

How do you Create a remote repository, create a local repository and then connect them?

Answer 21

remote repo:
1. go to github.com
2. click on the + (plus) sign
3. It will give you an option to make a new repository
4. It will spit out a HTTP or SSH string that you will use to connect the two repos

local repo:
1.In terminal, go to the folder where you want to create your new repo.
2. type: git init nameOfNewRepo
– this will create a new folder with the name of your repo and inside that folder will be another folder called .git which will contain all the necessary files for your repo. – so it creates a folder to hold everything, you don’t need to do that beforehand
– also, give it the exact same name you gave the remote repo on Github

Connect local and remote repos:
1. Go to Github and copy the HTTP string that was generated when you created the remote repo. (it might be under the CODE button)
2. In the terminal navigate to the folder of your local repo
3. type this command:
git remote add origin HTTPstringOfRemotRepo
4. If you’re not already authenticated, it will ask you for auth - either by password or personal access token (PAT). I used PAT and it lasts for 30 days.
5. to get a PAT click on your avatar pic, go to settings, click on developer settings (bottom of left side bar), personal access tokens (left side bar) and then “tokens classic”

May want to set up SSH in the future.

Question 22

what does the following terminal prompt do?
cd..

Answer 22

go up one directory (folder)
so if you’re in
C:/users/stuck you’ll go up one to
C:/users

Question 23

What does this command prompt do?
cd\

Answer 23

It takes you to the top of the directory tree
so if you’re in C:\user\stuck\blah
it will take you to
C:\

Question 24

How do you move down into an already established directory?

Answer 24

cd plus entire path name
OR
cd nameOfFolder (if folder is just the next step down)

If you know the path to the directory you want, you can type it in using backslashes. For example, this would get you to the desktop
cd C:\Users\stuck\Desktop
if your at desktop ^^ and you want to get into the Bubba folder which is inside desktop you can type
cd Bubba
and that will put you inside the Bubba folder

Question 25

How do you change drives using the terminal/command prompt?

Answer 25

To access another drive, type the drive’s letter, followed by :
For instance, if you wanted to change the drive from C: to D:, you should type: d:

Question 26

From the terminal, how do you see what files and folders are in the current directory?

Answer 26

DIR

Question 27

from the terminal, how do you make a new directory?

Answer 27

mkdir nameOfDirectory
so if I wanted to make a folder called “bubba” I would type
mkdir bubba

Question 28

How do you pull down changes from a remote repository into your local repository?

Answer 28

In the terminal:
1. make sure you’re in the directory of you local repo
2. type: git pull origin main

Question 29

how do you check the status of the current branch?

Answer 29

git status
it will show the status of the current branch, including any changes that have been made to the files in the repository. It provides information about which files have been modified, which files have been staged, and which files are untracked.

Question 30

How do you add files to the staging area?

Answer 30

git add fileName

git add . – I believe this adds everything to the staging area

Question 31

How do you commit changes to the current branch?

Answer 31

git commit -m “Commit message”

Question 32

How do you push your changes to a remote repository?

Answer 32

git push origin main

Question 33

List all the typical steps you would take when making a commit and pushing to the remote repo?

Answer 33

1. After making your changes, save the file in VSCode – CTRL + S
2. git status – this will show you in which files there are changes
3. git add . OR git add fileName – this will add your changes to the staging area
4. git commit -m “commitMessage” – this will commit those changes
5. git push origin main – this will push your newly committed changes to the remote repository.