reference.md

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Quick reference

Basics - navigating the shell

pwd : print working directory

ls : list directory : : - -l: list file information : - -lh: list human readable file information

cd : change directory

Basics - interacting with files

mkdir : make directory

cat : send file or files to output (in most cases, print to shell)

head : output first parts of a file or files

tail : output last parts of a file or files

mv : rename or move a file or files. Syntax for renaming a file: mv FILENAME NEWFILENAME

cp : copy a file or files. Syntax: cp FILENAME NEWFILENAME

> : redirect output. Syntax with cat: cat FILENAME1 FILENAME2 > NEWFILENAME

rm : remove a file or files. NB: USE WITH CAUTION!!!

Basic Git commands

Git cheat sheet handouts:

• GitHub git cheat sheet
• Tower client git cheat sheet

git init : create a new local git repository

git status : view the status of your files in the working directory and staging area

git add : tell git to start tracking a file, or a series of files

git commit : save file changes from the staging area permanently to the project history

git push : upload all commits to a remote repository, such as GitHub

git log : show history of commits in reverse chronological order

git diff : show changes made to tracked files

git pull : download upstream changes and merge them into your local repository

git remote add origin : add a remote repository named 'origin', to upload changes to or download changes from

Useful library GitHub repositories

• DavidChouinard/mrc_to_csv: 'Python script for converting MARC21 files to a saner format (CSV), originally designed for the Harvard Libraries MARC21 records'
• Process MARC records from Python
  • https://pypi.org/project/pymarc/
• umd-mith/git-intro: high level intro to git
• edsu/mirador
• edsu/microdata
• dhtaxonomy/TaDiRAH
• OpenAPC/openapc-de
• JiscMonitor/allapc
• Python Programming for Humanities
• Code4Lib 2008 lightning talk – Git and distributed cataloging
• Open Science Guide

Further reading

• The help pages of GitHub are a good place to start
• GitHub has 'activities' which aim to explain how git works
• GitHub also has interactive tutorials for their online version (Learning Labs) and for using Git offline (Git-It)
• Atlassian has in depth but clear tutorials on using git
• The Programming Historian uses GitHub to manage lessons useful to historians and also people working in libraries. It is a useful resource for lessons but also to see GitHub in action.