Software Engineering

First, inspect your Git state

Make sure you have Git installed and configured. You can check your Git version by running:

git version

Output:

git version 2.46.0


Ensure the default branch is set correctly:

git config --get --global init.defaultBranch

Output:

main




(you should do that now)










Configuring your own git

Before getting started, we need to configure git to contain your information. Every commit comes with the author's name and email address.

To ensure we all get credit and blame for our code, we need to set our name and email.










git config

In Git there is a global configuration file for all projects on your machine. You can think of the global setting as "good default". There is also a local project level configuratin.

Project settings can override global settings.

In some projects you may want to use your personal details, like a different email.










Some facts about git config:

  • All gif config keys are in the shape of <section>.<key>. we refer to them as <key> for now.
  • You can set a key with --global to set it globally, meaning it counts for all new repos as well, unless overridden.
  • The keys used in creating a commit tied to you are user.name and user.email.
  • Add a key value pair with git config --add --global <key> "<value>".
  • You can view any value of git config by executing git config --get <key>.
  • You can view all git config by executing git config --list, and git config --list --local for local settings specifically.

Note: You change a value by setting it again.

Note: If you have multiple key-value pairs, the last one set will get used. You can always remove all of them with git config --unset-all <key>.











Exercise: Configure git

Add your user.name and user.email to your global git configuration IF you do not already have values for them.












Solution: Configure git

Check if you have a name and email set:

git config --get user.name
git config --get user.email

If you get nothing out, we need to add both user.name and user.email.

git config --add --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --add --global user.email "your@email.com"