Clean vs dirty working directory in Git - Hands-On Comparison

Clean vs Dirty Working Directory in Git

📖 Scenario: You are working on a project using Git for version control. You want to understand how to check if your working directory is clean (no changes) or dirty (has changes) before committing your work.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to check the status of your Git working directory to see if it is clean or dirty using Git commands.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a new Git repository

Create a file and add it to the repository

Modify the file to make the working directory dirty

Use Git commands to check the working directory status

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Checking if your working directory is clean or dirty helps you avoid committing unwanted changes and keeps your project history clean.

💼 Career

Understanding Git status is essential for developers and DevOps engineers to manage code changes safely and collaborate effectively.

1

Initialize a Git repository and create a file

Run the command git init to create a new Git repository. Then create a file named example.txt with the content Hello Git.

Git

# Run 'git init' and create 'example.txt' with content 'Hello Git'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git init to start a repository. Use echo to create the file with text.

2

Add the file to Git and commit

Run the command git add example.txt to stage the file. Then run git commit -m "Initial commit" to commit the file to the repository.

Git

git init

echo "Hello Git" > example.txt
# Add 'example.txt' to Git and commit with message 'Initial commit'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git add to stage files and git commit -m to commit with a message.

3

Modify the file to make the working directory dirty

Change the content of example.txt by adding the line New line to make the working directory dirty.

Git

git init

echo "Hello Git" > example.txt

git add example.txt

git commit -m "Initial commit"
# Add a new line 'New line' to 'example.txt'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo "New line" >> example.txt to append a line to the file.

4

Check if the working directory is clean or dirty

Run the command git status --short to see if the working directory is clean or dirty. The output should show the modified file.

Git

git init

echo "Hello Git" > example.txt

git add example.txt

git commit -m "Initial commit"

echo "New line" >> example.txt
# Run 'git status --short' to check working directory status
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The output line starting with M means the file is modified and the working directory is dirty.