Setting Up Git

Overview

Questions

• How do I get set up to use Git?

Objectives

• Configure git the first time it is used on a computer.
• Understand the meaning of the --global configuration flag.

When we use Git on a new computer for the first time, we need to configure a few things. Below are a few examples of configurations we will set as we get started with Git:

• our name and email address,
• what our preferred text editor is,
• and that we want to use these settings globally (i.e. for every project).

On a command line, Git commands are written as git verb options, where verb is what we actually want to do and options is additional optional information which may be needed for the verb. So here is how Dracula sets up his new laptop:

BASH

$ git config --global user.name "Vlad Dracula"
$ git config --global user.email "vlad@tran.sylvan.ia"

Please use your own name and email address instead of Dracula’s. This user name and email will be associated with your subsequent Git activity, which means that any changes pushed to GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab or another Git host server after this lesson will include this information.

For this lesson, we will be interacting with GitHub and so the email address used should be the same as the one used when setting up your GitHub account. If you are concerned about privacy, please review GitHub’s instructions for keeping your email address private.

Keeping your email private

If you elect to use a private email address with GitHub, then use GitHub’s no-reply email address for the user.email value. It looks like ID+username@users.noreply.github.com. You can look up your own address in your GitHub email settings.

Line Endings

When working with git bash, you may run into a warning on line endings:

As with other keys, when you hit Enter or ↵ or on Macs, Return on your keyboard, your computer encodes this input as a character. Different operating systems use different character(s) to represent the end of a line. (You may also hear these referred to as newlines or line breaks.) Because Git uses these characters to compare files, it may cause unexpected issues when editing a file on different machines. Though it is beyond the scope of this lesson, you can read more about this issue in the Pro Git book.

You can change the way Git recognizes and encodes line endings using the core.autocrlf command to git config. The following settings are recommended:

On macOS and Linux:

BASH

$ git config --global core.autocrlf input

And on Windows:

BASH

$ git config --global core.autocrlf true

Set your text editor to nano. nano is a simple to use command-line editor, and we recommend to use it during this lesson.

Execute the following command:

BASH

$ git config --global core.editor "nano"

Configuring a different editor

You can configure a different editor than nano if you wish. Here are a few examples:

Editor	Configuration command
Atom	$ git config --global core.editor "atom --wait"
BBEdit (Mac, with command line tools)	$ git config --global core.editor "bbedit -w"
Sublime Text (Mac)	$ git config --global core.editor "/Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl -n -w"
Sublime Text (Win, 32-bit install)	$ git config --global core.editor "'c:/program files (x86)/sublime text 3/sublime_text.exe' -w"
Sublime Text (Win, 64-bit install)	$ git config --global core.editor "'c:/program files/sublime text 3/sublime_text.exe' -w"
Notepad (Win)	$ git config --global core.editor "c:/Windows/System32/notepad.exe"
Notepad++ (Win, 32-bit install)	$ git config --global core.editor "'c:/program files (x86)/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin"
Notepad++ (Win, 64-bit install)	$ git config --global core.editor "'c:/program files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe' -multiInst -notabbar -nosession -noPlugin"
Kate (Linux)	$ git config --global core.editor "kate"
Gedit (Linux)	$ git config --global core.editor "gedit --wait --new-window"
Scratch (Linux)	$ git config --global core.editor "scratch-text-editor"
Emacs	$ git config --global core.editor "emacs"
Vim	$ git config --global core.editor "vim"
VS Code	$ git config --global core.editor "code --wait"

It is possible to reconfigure the text editor for Git whenever you want to change it.

Default Git branch naming

Source file changes are associated with a “branch.” For new learners in this lesson, it’s enough to know that branches exist, and this lesson uses one branch.
Previously, by default, Git would create a branch called master instead of main, when you create a new repository with git init (as explained in the next Episode). This term evokes the racist practice of human slavery and the software development community has moved to adopt more inclusive language.

In 2020, most Git code hosting services transitioned to using main as the default branch.

The five commands we just ran above only need to be run once: the flag --global tells Git to use the settings for every project, in your user account, on this computer.

Let’s review those settings and test our core.editor right away:

BASH

$ git config --global --edit

Let’s close the file without making any additional changes. Remember, since typos in the config file will cause issues, it’s safer to view the configuration with:

BASH

$ git config --list

And if necessary, change your configuration using the same commands to choose another editor or update your email address. This can be done as many times as you want.

Git Help and Manual

Always remember that if you forget the subcommands or options of a git command, you can access the relevant list of options typing git <command> -h or access the corresponding Git manual by typing git <command> --help, e.g.:

BASH

$ git config -h
$ git config --help

While viewing the manual, remember the : is a prompt waiting for commands and you can press Q to exit the manual.

More generally, you can get the list of available git commands and further resources of the Git manual typing:

BASH

$ git help

Key Points

• Use git config with the --global option to configure a user name, email address, editor, and other preferences once per machine.