Chapter 3. Developing with Git

The previous chapter explained how to examine the project history. This chapter will describe how to create such history and how to add to it. We will learn how to create new revisions and new lines of development. Now it's time to show how to develop with Git.

Here we will focus on committing one's own work, on the solo development. The description of working as one of the contributors is left for Chapter 5, Collaborative Development with Git, while Chapter 7, Merging Changes Together, shows how Git can help in maintainer duties.

This chapter will introduce the very important Git concept of the staging area (the index). It will also explain, in more detail, the idea of a detached HEAD, that is, an anonymous unnamed branch. Here you can also find a detailed description of the extended unified diff format that Git uses to describe changes.

The following is the list of the topics we will cover in this chapter:

• The index – a staging area for commits
• Examining the status of the working area and changes in it
• How to read the extended unified diff that is used to describe changes
• Selective and interactive commit, and amending a commit
• Creating, listing, and selecting (switching to) branches
• What can prevent switching branch, and what you can do then
• Rewinding a branch with git reset
• Detached HEAD, that is, the unnamed branch (checking out tag and so on)