Master Git vs SVN: Essential Commands and Git‑SVN Workflow

Git vs SVN

Git and SVN each have their own strengths; Git is distributed while SVN is centralized.

Git is distributed, allowing offline work and cheap branching; SVN requires network access and its branches are copies of directories, making them expensive.

Git commands are numerous (add, commit, status, fetch, push, rebase, merge, cherry-pick, submodule, stash, etc.), while SVN is simpler for beginners.

Git Core Concepts

Workspace: the actual directory on your computer.

Index (staging area): a temporary cache for changes.

Repository: can be local or remote.

Switching from SVN to Git requires understanding the index and local repository, which greatly simplify workflow.

Typical commit workflow:

git add – move changes from workspace to index.

git commit – move changes from index to local repository.

git push or git svn dcommit – upload local repository to remote.

Common Git commands (image):

Git‑SVN Commands

When the server uses SVN but you want Git’s local branching, use Git‑SVN:

# Clone an SVN project with full history and initialize a Git repo
git svn clone -s [repository]
# Show repository info
git svn info
# Fetch all branch changes
git svn fetch
# Rebase local branch with remote changes
git svn rebase
# Upload local branch to remote
git svn dcommit
# Create a new remote branch
svn copy [remote_branch] [new_remote_branch] -m [message]
# Create a local branch tracking the remote branch
git checkout -b [local_branch] [remote_branch]

Initialization

# Initialize a new Git repository in the current directory
git init
# Clone a project with full history (Git only)
git clone [url]

Configuration

# List all configurations
git config -l
# Set command aliases
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.ci commit
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.br branch
# Set user information
git config [--global] user.name "[name]"
git config [--global] user.email "[email address]"

Add / Delete Files

# Add all files in the current directory
git add .
# Add specific files
git add <file1> <file2> ...
# Add a directory recursively
git add <dir>
# Remove files and stage the deletion
git rm [file1] [file2] ...
# Stop tracking a file but keep it in the workspace
git rm --cached [file]
# Rename a file and stage the change
git mv [file-original] [file-renamed]

Branch Management

# List local branches
git branch
# List all branches (local and remote)
git branch -a
# Create a new branch
git branch [branch-name]
# Create and switch to a new branch
git checkout -b [new_branch] [remote-branch]
# Switch to an existing branch
git checkout [branch-name]
# Merge a branch into the current branch
git merge [branch]
# Cherry‑pick a specific commit
git cherry-pick [commit]
# Delete a local branch
git branch -d [branch-name]
# Delete a remote branch
git push [remote] :[remote-branch]

Commit Operations

# Commit staged changes with a message
git commit -m [message]
# Commit all changes directly
git commit -a
# Show diff in commit
git commit -v
# Amend the previous commit
git commit --amend -m [message]
# Push a branch to remote
git push [remote] [remote-branch]

Pulling Changes

# Fetch all changes from remote (Git only)
git fetch [remote]
# Show remote repositories
git remote -v
# Show details of a remote
git remote show [remote]
# Add a new remote
git remote add [remote-name] [url]
# Pull and merge changes
git pull [remote] [branch]
# Pull and rebase changes
git pull --rebase [remote] [branch]

Reverting and Stashing

# Restore a file from index to workspace
git checkout [file]
# Restore all files in current directory
git checkout .
# Reset a file to the last commit
git reset [file]
# Reset index and workspace to last commit
git reset --hard
# Reset branch pointer to a specific commit
git reset [commit]
# Reset branch and workspace to a specific commit
git reset --hard [commit]
# Revert a commit
git revert [commit]
# Stash uncommitted changes
git stash
# Apply stashed changes
git stash pop

Querying Repository

# Show status of workspace
git status
# Show changes in a file
git diff [file]
# Show staged changes
git diff --cached [file]
# Show commit log
git log
# Filter log by author
git log --author=someone
# Show file history with patches
git log -p [file]
# Show details of a specific commit
git show [commit]

In practice, Git is used more frequently than SVN because of its richer feature set.