[Gllug] git "snapshots"

[Philip Hands]

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:33:19 +0100, gvim <gvimrc at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is probably rather basic but bear with me. I'm trying to get my
> head round git and hear constant references to the term "snapshot"
> without any explanation of what such an entity contains other than
> unhelpful photographic analogies. Apparently git is based on snapshots
> of the working directory but does that mean a complete copy of the
> whole directory is made during a commit? If so, the disk usage would
> be huge so I suspect this is not what a snapshot refers to. Too often
> I find git terminology is explained with other git terminology so not
> helpful to new users.

To understand git, read:

  http://ftp.newartisans.com/pub/git.from.bottom.up.pdf

as found here:

  http://www.newartisans.com/2008/04/git-from-the-bottom-up.html

Try not to make guesses about what's going on from the terms used, since
git uses terms like 'commit' and 'branch' rather differently from other
VCSs.

you might want to have a look at the commands:

  git gui
and 
  gitk --all

which give a graphical view of what's going on, and may make things
somewhat clearer.

Having bash_completion enabled is very helpful when using git on the
command line as well.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
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