Creating a Repository

Overview

Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• Where does Git store information?

Objectives

• Create a local Git repository.

• Describe the purpose of the .git directory.

Once Git is configured, we can start using it.

First lets make an example directory to use git in, before we start using for dc_workshop:

$ mkdir ~/example_git/

$ cd ~/example_git/

Then we tell Git to make example_git a repository – a place where Git can store versions of our files:

$ git init

It is important to note that git init will create a repository that includes subdirectories and their files—there is no need to create separate repositories nested within the example_git repository, whether subdirectories are present from the beginning or added later. Also, note that the creation of the example_git directory and its initialization as a repository are completely separate processes.

If we use ls to show the directory’s contents, it appears that nothing has changed:

$ ls

But if we add the -a flag to show everything, we can see that Git has created a hidden directory within example_git called .git:

$ ls -a

.	..	.git

Git uses this special subdirectory to store all the information about the project, including all files and sub-directories located within the project’s directory. If we ever delete the .git subdirectory, we will lose the project’s history.

We can check that everything is set up correctly by asking Git to tell us the status of our project:

$ git status

On branch master

No commits yet

nothing to commit (create/copy files and use "git add" to track)

If you are using a different version of git, the exact wording of the output might be slightly different.

Removing version control

$ rm -rf example_git/.git

But be careful! Running this command in the wrong directory, will remove the entire Git history of a project you might want to keep. Therefore, always check your current directory using the command pwd.

This lesson was derived from https://swcarpentry.github.io/git-novice/03-create/index.html

Key Points

• git init initializes a repository.

• Git stores all of its repository data in the .git directory.