Install and Use Git Locally

11 Apr 2011 in Mac OS X, Git

Git is a powerful, flexible version control simple, one I find more intuitive than Subversion. Once again, I use MacPorts to install Git, and then I supply some global configuration settings.

sudo port install git-core
git config --global user.name "Mark Fenoglio"
git config --global user.email markf@istarelworkshop.com
git config --global color.diff auto
git config --global color.status auto
git config --global color.branch auto

The first two Git configuration commands set important defaults for identifying the author of changes to the repository. The last three commands define what colors to use when Git presents information in the console.

Create the Initial Git Repository

cd ~/Sites/iw
git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/markf/Sites/iw/.git/

Ignoring Mac OS X Finder Detritus

One nuisance in Mac OS X when working with version control systems is (normally hidden) .DS_Store files created by the Finder. Git allows you to globally ignore files.

git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore
echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore

Exclude Files from Version Control

In addition to being able to ignore certain files regardless of context, you can also ignore files for a specific Git repository. One common example of this is configuration files where the values of certain parameters will be different between development (local) and production (remote) environments.

cd ~/Sites/iw
vi .git/info/exclude
conf/ApplicationConstants.php
httpd.conf
install/conf/sh.conf
install/php/config.php

Initial Repository

Now that the appropriate files will not be part of the repository, I can create its initial version.

git add .
git commit -m "[install] initial repository"

The . in the first command is a wildcard that means add all non-ignored files to the current batch of changes. The -m switch on the commit command is the message to be included as the changes are committed to the repository.