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# Configure git

## Overview

Your personal git configurations are saved in the `.gitconfig` file in your home directory. Here is an example `.gitconfig` file:

    [user]
            name = Your Name
            email = you@yourdomain.example.com

    [alias]
            ci = commit -a
            co = checkout
            st = status -a
            stat = status -a
            br = branch
            wdiff = diff --color-words

    [core]
            editor = vim

    [merge]
            summary = true

You can edit this file directly or you can use the `git config --global` command:

    git config --global user.name "Your Name"
    git config --global user.email you@yourdomain.example.com
    git config --global alias.ci "commit -a"
    git config --global alias.co checkout
    git config --global alias.st "status -a"
    git config --global alias.stat "status -a"
    git config --global alias.br branch
    git config --global alias.wdiff "diff --color-words"
    git config --global core.editor vim
    git config --global merge.summary true

To set up on another computer, you can copy your `~/.gitconfig` file, or run the commands above.

## In detail

### user.name and user.email

It is good practice to tell git who you are, for labeling any changes you make to the code. The simplest way to do this is from the command line:

    git config --global user.name "Your Name"
    git config --global user.email you@yourdomain.example.com

This will write the settings into your git configuration file, which should now contain a user section with your name and email:

    [user]
          name = Your Name
          email = you@yourdomain.example.com

Of course you’ll need to replace `Your Name` and `you@yourdomain.example.com` with your actual name and email address.

### Aliases

You might well benefit from some aliases to common commands.

For example, you might well want to be able to shorten `git checkout` to `git co`. Or you may want to alias `git diff --color-words` (which gives a nicely formatted output of the diff) to `git wdiff`

The following `git config --global` commands:

    git config --global alias.ci "commit -a"
    git config --global alias.co checkout
    git config --global alias.st "status -a"
    git config --global alias.stat "status -a"
    git config --global alias.br branch
    git config --global alias.wdiff "diff --color-words"

will create an `alias` section in your `.gitconfig` file with contents like this:

    [alias]
            ci = commit -a
            co = checkout
            st = status -a
            stat = status -a
            br = branch
            wdiff = diff --color-words

### Editor

You may also want to make sure that your editor of choice is used

    git config --global core.editor vim

### Merging

To enforce summaries when doing merges (`~/.gitconfig` file again):

    [merge]
       log = true

Or from the command line:

    git config --global merge.log true