CIS241

System-Level Programming and Utilities

git (leftovers)

Erik Fredericks, frederer@gvsu.edu
Fall 2025

Based on material provided by Erin Carrier, Austin Ferguson, and Katherine Bowers

Merge tools

As mentioned, there are other options

However, you can include them in the terminal process!

• Meld, for example -
  • git config --global merge.tool meld
  • git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false

After encountering a merge conflict, run git mergetool

• Still need to add/commit!

Stashing changes

git stash - temporarily save changes for later

• Takes staged and unstaged changes to tracked files
• Saves for later and removes changes from working directory

Use the -u option to also stash untracked files

git stash pop brings them back

• Also possible to access more than just the recent stash!

Reverting commits

git revert <commit hash>

Examples:

• git revert HEAD~1
• git revert SHA (where SHA is a commit ID)
  • Don't need all of it, just the first handful of characters if they are unique!

Doesn't rewrite history - just makes a new 'revert' commit

Viewing previous versions

git restore --source=<commit> filepath

• Can replace with branch name
• Filepath can be . or use globbing (e.g., *.c)

git checkout <commit> filename

• DON'T DO git checkout <commit> - detached HEAD state!

git show <commit>:filename

And last for now, ignoring files

Create a .gitignore file in your repo root and make sure you add it

• git add .gitignore

Any file/directory name or glob will be ignored!

• Helpful when using git add . to add everything!

For example, .vscode configs, Unity temp files, or secrets files

https://github.com/github/gitignore