Accidental Deletion
See what happens when you accidentally delete a file.
The four stages of Git repositories#
Recall the four stages of data in Git repositories:
Visualizing the repository’s history#
Run these commands in which you look at the repository, and then make a disastrous mistake.
1 git log
This shows you a default history of the repository. Page through it a few times by hitting space or down. You will see how far it goes back. Hit q to stop viewing it, and return to the command line.
2 git log --oneline
Another way to view the log is one line per commit, which is much more concise and useful for many purposes. Obviously, some information is lost here.
3 git log --oneline --graph
You’ve added the --graph flag, and now you get a visual representation of the history. Parsing this graph can be tricky; don’t worry about understanding it exactly. But keep it in mind. It is helpful if you ever have to figure out what went on in a repository’s past.
Using git log to view the history on the terminal is one of the most powerful tools you will have at your disposal if you are responsible for a shared repository.
Cloning the repository for testing purposes#
Now you’re going to clone the repository so that you’ve got a copy to mess around with.
4 cd ..
5 git clone shutit cloned_shutit
6 cd cloned_shutit
It’s worth, at this point, reminding yourself of the .git folder.
7 ls .git
Have a look around, and see how it differs from the repository you originally cloned into the shutit folder.
Making a “mistake”#
Now you get distracted and type:
8 rm -rf ../cloned_shutit/*
Oops. You just deleted your cloned repository.
9 ls .git
Hmmm, why is the .git folder still there?
This has nothing to do with Git, rather it’s due to how BASH interprets the * character. The * character does not match files beginning with ‘.’ as the command ls ignores them similarly. This is just a convention of Linux (and other) operating systems.
You have cloned the repository and “accidentally” deleted all the files under Git’s control in this cloned repository. This kind of disaster happens all the time. Most often, it happens when you start to use Git and more often when you are on a tight deadline.
