Commit (version control)

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In version control systems, a commit is an operation which sends the latest changes of the source code to the repository, making these changes part of the head revision of the repository. Unlike commits in data management, commits in version control systems are kept in the repository indefinitely. Thus, when other users do an update or a checkout from the repository, they will receive the latest committed version, unless they specify that they wish to retrieve a previous version of the source code in the repository. Version control systems allow rolling back to previous versions easily. In this context, a commit within a version control system is protected as it is easily rolled back, even after the commit has been applied.

Contents

Usage

Git

To commit a change in git on the command line, assuming git is installed, the following command is run: [1]

git commit -m 'commit message'

This is also assuming that the files within the current directory have been staged as such: [2]

git add .

The above command adds all of the files in the working directory to be staged for the git commit. After the commit has been applied, the last step is to push the commit to the given software repository, in the case below named origin, to the branch main: [3]

git push origin main

Also, a shortcut to add all the unstaged files and make a commit at the same time is: [4]

git commit -a -m 'commit message'

Mercurial (hg)

To commit a change in Mercurial on the command line, assuming hg is installed, the following command is used: [5]

hg commit --message 'Commit Message'

This is also assuming that the files within the current directory have been staged as such:

hg add

The above command adds all of the files in the working directory to be staged for the Mercurial commit. After the commit has been applied, the last step is to push the commit to the given software repository, to the default branch:

hg push

See also

Related Research Articles

Version control is the software engineering practice of controlling, organizing, and tracking different versions in history of computer files; primarily source code text files, but generally any type of file.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apache Subversion</span> Free and open-source software versioning and revision control system

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of software configuration management</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU arch</span> Distributed revision control system

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Git</span> Distributed version control software system

Git is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively.

In software development, distributed version control is a form of version control in which the complete codebase, including its full history, is mirrored on every developer's computer. Compared to centralized version control, this enables automatic management branching and merging, speeds up most operations, improves the ability to work offline, and does not rely on a single location for backups. Git, the world's most popular version control system, is a distributed version control system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mantis Bug Tracker</span> Bug tracking system

Mantis Bug Tracker is a free and open source, web-based bug tracking system. The most common use of MantisBT is to track software defects. However, MantisBT is often configured by users to serve as a more generic issue tracking system and project management tool.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darcs</span> Distributed version control system

Darcs is a distributed version control system created by David Roundy. Key features include the ability to choose which changes to accept from other repositories, interaction with either other local (on-disk) repositories or remote repositories via SSH, HTTP, or email, and an unusually interactive interface. The developers also emphasize the use of advanced software tools for verifying correctness: the expressive type system of the functional programming language Haskell enforces some properties, and randomized testing via QuickCheck verifies many others. The name is a recursive acronym for Darcs Advanced Revision Control System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercurial</span> Distributed revision-control tool for software developers

Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and other Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD and macOS.

Branching, in version control and software configuration management, is the duplication of an object under version control. Each object can thereafter be modified separately and in parallel so that the objects become different. In this context the objects are called branches. The users of the version control system can branch any branch.

The following tables describe attributes of notable version control and software configuration management (SCM) software systems that can be used to compare and contrast the various systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU Bazaar</span> Version control system

GNU Bazaar is a distributed and client–server revision control system sponsored by Canonical.

A software regression is a type of software bug where a feature that has worked before stops working. This may happen after changes are applied to the software's source code, including the addition of new features and bug fixes. They may also be introduced by changes to the environment in which the software is running, such as system upgrades, system patching or a change to daylight saving time. A software performance regression is a situation where the software still functions correctly, but performs more slowly or uses more memory or resources than before. Various types of software regressions have been identified in practice, including the following:

In version control software, a changeset is a set of alterations packaged together, along with meta-information about the alterations. A changeset describes the exact differences between two successive versions in the version control system's repository of changes. Changesets are typically treated as an atomic unit, an indivisible set, by version control systems. This is one synchronization model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TortoiseHg</span>

TortoiseHg is a GUI front-end for Mercurial that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Unity Version Control is a cross-platform commercial distributed version control tool developed by Códice Software for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other operating systems. It includes a command-line tool, native GUIs, diff and merge tool and integration with a number of IDEs. It is a full version control stack not based on Git.

In version control systems, a repository is a data structure that stores metadata for a set of files or directory structure. Depending on whether the version control system in use is distributed, like Git or Mercurial, or centralized, like Subversion, CVS, or Perforce, the whole set of information in the repository may be duplicated on every user's system or may be maintained on a single server. Some of the metadata that a repository contains includes, among other things, a historical record of changes in the repository, a set of commit objects, and a set of references to commit objects, called heads.

In version-control systems, a monorepo is a software-development strategy in which the code for a number of projects is stored in the same repository. This practice dates back to at least the early 2000s, when it was commonly called a shared codebase. Google, Meta, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb, and Twitter all employ very large monorepos with varying strategies to scale build systems and version control software with a large volume of code and daily changes.

References

  1. "What's the Git Commit Command? Our 2023 Beginner's Guide". careerfoundry.com. 2022-06-13. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
  2. "The git add command for beginners". www.theserverside.com. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
  3. "GIT Push and Pull Tutorial". DataCamp. 2019-07-01. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
  4. "Git - git-commit Documentation". www.git-scm.com. Retrieved 2017-10-04.
  5. "Hg - Mercurial -Quickstart". www.mercurial-scm.com. Retrieved 2018-11-05.