It is said, that once upon a time, programmers used CSV and collaborated on SourceForge, and that everyone was happy.
These days, are however, long gone in the mists of time as of 2020, and beyond Ciro Santilli's programming birth.
- stackoverflow.com/questions/600079/how-do-i-clone-a-subdirectory-only-of-a-git-repository/52269934#52269934
- summaries:
- dupes:
- file or directory
- file
- only small files:
See also: Ciro Santilli's minor projects.
This is a quick presentation that goes over some of the most common difficulties people find with Git.
Before:
5 master
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4 7 my-feature HEAD
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3 6
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2
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1Action:
git rebaseAfter:Ready to push with linear history!
7 my-feature HEAD
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6
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5 master
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4
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3
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2
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1Before:
7 my-feature HEAD
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6
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5 master
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4
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3
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2
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1Oh, commit 6 was crap:
git rebase -i HEAD~2Mark
6 to be modified.After:Better now, ready to push.
7 my-feature HEAD
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6v2
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5 master
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4
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3
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2
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1Oh but there are usually 2 trees: local and remote.
So you also have to learn how to observe and modify and sync with the remote tree!
But basically:to update the remote tree. And then you can use it exactly like any other branch, except you prefix them with the remote (usually
git fetchorigin/*), e.g.:origin/masteris the latest fetch of the remote version ofmasterorigin/my-featureis the latest fetch of the remote version ofmy-feature
In order to solve conflicts, you just have to understand what commit you are trying to move where.
E.g. if from:we do:what happens step by step is first 6 is moved on top of 5:and then 7 is moved on top of the new 6:
5 master
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4 7 my-feature HEAD
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3 6
|/
2
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1git rebase master6on5 HEAD
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5 master
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4 7 my-feature
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3 6
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2-----------------+
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17on5 HEAD
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6on5
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5 master
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4 7 my-feature
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3 6
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2-----------------+
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17on5 my-feature HEAD
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6on5
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5 master
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4
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3
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2
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1 Git tips The key to solve conflicts: see the two conflicting diffs by 
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16The key to solve conflicts is:
You have to understand what are the two commits that touched a given line (one from master, one from features), and then combine them somehow.
These are good free newbie GUI options:
sudo apt install meld
git mergetool --tool meld
sudo apt install kdiff3
git mergetool --tool kdiff3
git-tips-2.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -eux
add() (
rm -f f
for i in `seq 10`; do
printf "before $i\n\n" >> f
done
printf "conflict 1 $1\n\n" >> f
for i in `seq 10`; do
printf "middle $i\n\n" >> f
done
printf "conflict 2 $2\n\n" >> f
for i in `seq 10`; do
printf "after $i\n\n" >> f
done
git add f
)
rm -rf git-tips-2
mkdir git-tips-2
cd git-tips-2
git init
for i in 1 2 3; do
add $i $i
git commit -m $i
done
add 3 4
git commit -m 4
add 5 4
git commit -m 5
git checkout HEAD~2
git checkout -b my-feature
add 3 6
git commit -m 6
add 7 6
git commit -m 7 Git tips But which commit from master did we conflict with exactly? by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16git rebase does not tell you that, and that sucks.We only know which commit from the feature branch caused the problem.
Generally we can guess or it is not needed, but
imerge does look promising: stackoverflow.com/questions/18162930/how-can-i-find-out-which-git-commits-cause-conflicts
The HNN extension, named after the mathematicians Graham Higman, B. H. Neumann, and Hanna Neumann, is a construction in group theory that allows the creation of new groups from existing ones. Specifically, an HNN extension is a type of group that is used to generalize the notion of groups with an additional structure, particularly when it comes to accommodating certain types of relations between groups.
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
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Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 2. You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either OurBigBook.com or as a static website.
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.
Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally. Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension. 
- Infinitely deep tables of contents:
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Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
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