Git Review Changes

Git Review Changes: A Complete Guide

What is Git Review Changes?

In Git, reviewing changes refers to the process of checking what has been modified in your working directory or staging area before committing those changes to the repository. Reviewing changes helps ensure that you’re only including the intended modifications and prevents unwanted or erroneous changes from being committed.

Reviewing changes can be done at different stages, whether the changes are staged, unstaged, or committed. Git provides a variety of commands to help you review these changes effectively.

Why Review Changes?

Avoid Unwanted Changes: Reviewing changes helps you catch mistakes before they are committed, ensuring that only relevant changes are added to the project history.
Collaborate Effectively: When working with a team, reviewing changes helps in understanding the changes others have made, ensuring that all modifications are deliberate and well-formed.
Track Progress: Regularly reviewing changes allows you to keep track of your progress and understand how your work is evolving before pushing changes to the remote repository.

How to Review Changes in Git

Git provides multiple commands and tools to review changes in your repository. Here’s how you can review changes at different stages.

1. Review Changes in the Working Directory

If you’ve made changes but haven’t staged them yet, you can use git diff to see what has been modified.

View Unstaged Changes:
To see what has been changed but not yet staged, use:
```
git diff
```
This command shows the differences between your working directory and the index (staging area). It displays which lines have been added or removed.
View Specific File Changes:
If you want to review changes for a specific file, you can specify the file name:
```
git diff <file-name>
```
Example:
```
git diff index.html
```

2. Review Staged Changes

Once you’ve staged changes using git add, you can review them before committing.

View Staged Changes:
To see what has been staged for the next commit, use:
```
git diff --cached
```
This shows the differences between the index (staging area) and the last commit, allowing you to review what changes are ready to be committed.
Review Staged Changes for a Specific File:
To review staged changes for a specific file, specify the file name:
```
git diff --cached <file-name>
```
Example:
```
git diff --cached app.js
```

3. Review All Changes (Staged and Unstaged)

If you want to review both staged and unstaged changes, you can use the following commands together:

Show Staged and Unstaged Changes:
To see the combined differences between your working directory and the last commit (both staged and unstaged changes), run:
```
git diff HEAD
```
This will show the diff of all changes (both staged and unstaged) in comparison to the latest commit.

4. Review Changes in Previous Commits

Once changes have been committed, you may want to review the differences between commits.

View Changes in a Specific Commit:
To view the changes made in a specific commit, use the git show command followed by the commit hash:
```
git show <commit-hash>
```
Example:
```
git show 7a8b7f8
```
This command shows the details of the commit, including which files were modified and the exact changes made.
View the Commit History:
You can also use git log to view a list of commits and their messages. This helps you understand the commit history and find the commit hashes you want to review.
```
git log
```
If you want to see the changes made in each commit in the log, you can add the -p flag:
```
git log -p
```
This shows the patch (diff) for each commit, so you can review the changes made in each one.

5. Review Changes Across Branches

If you want to compare changes between different branches, Git provides commands for comparing branches and their changes.

Compare Two Branches:
To see the differences between two branches, use:
```
git diff <branch1> <branch2>
```
Example:
```
git diff main feature-branch
```
This shows the differences between the main branch and feature-branch, helping you review what changes are present in each branch.

6. Review Changes with Git GUI Tools

While the command line is a powerful way to review changes, there are also graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and Git integrations in IDEs (like VSCode, IntelliJ IDEA, or GitHub Desktop) that allow you to visually inspect changes. These tools provide a side-by-side view of differences, making it easier to review code, especially for large files or complex changes.

7. Interactive Review and Staging

Git offers an interactive staging feature that allows you to selectively stage parts of a file instead of staging the entire file. This can be useful for reviewing changes at a granular level.

Interactive Staging:
To enter interactive mode, use:
```
git add -p
```
Git will present each change in the file, allowing you to decide whether to stage it or not.

8. Reviewing Changes in Pull Requests (PRs)

When collaborating with a team, reviewing changes is often done through pull requests (PRs) on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. In PRs, you can compare the source branch with the target branch, see which files were modified, and leave comments on specific lines of code.

Review Pull Requests:
On platforms like GitHub, navigate to the Pull Requests tab of your repository, where you can review the changes, check the diff of modified files, and provide feedback.

Conclusion

Reviewing changes in Git is an essential part of working with version control, whether you're preparing to commit, looking over changes in previous commits, or comparing branches. Git offers several ways to view differences and track progress, ensuring that you can work more efficiently, collaborate better, and maintain the integrity of your codebase.

By using commands like git diff, git log, git show, and various GUI tools, you can effectively review your changes and make sure everything is in order before pushing them to a remote repository.

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of reviewing changes in Git. Let me know if you'd like to dive deeper into any particular section or need more examples!

Souy Soeng

Git Review Changes