removing-renaming-files.md

Removing/Renaming Files

Removing & Renaming files are one of fundamental requirements any Git users would need. For instance, you might want to correct a typo or merge two files into one file. There are several use cases for these two functionalities, thereby in this section, we'll cover the following items:

Table of Contents

1. How to remove a file?
2. How to remove a file? [Git-Style]
3. How to rename a file?
4. How to rename a file? [Git-Style]

How to remove a file

Before removing a file, let's create a file in the previous project which we created, namely git_01.

cd git_01
touch hello_world.txt # On Windows, you can create it graphically.
git add hello_world.txt # Add to stage(one step before commiting)
git commit -m "Add hello_world.txt" # commit the changes on stage
git push origin main # push the changes to remote repository

Now, let's remove the file simply by deleting it:

rm hello_world.txt # On Windows, you can remove it graphically.
git status

Image Notes:

1. hello_world.txt is deleted, but the changes are not staged!!
2. To restore a removed file use: git restore <file-name>. Using this command, you will have the exact file present on your git project/directory!
3. For adding the changes cause by removing a file you should use the following command: git rm <file-name>

So let's add the changes to stage:

git rm hello_world.txt 
git status

Image Notes:

1. the rm command after git is one of the git commands, and it works on Windows/Linux/Mac.
2. the changes now are transfered to stage, ready for being committed
3. Like always, by using git restored --staged <file-name> command one can restore the files which are staged!

Let's commit and push the changes:

git commit -m "Remove hello_world.txt"
git push origin main

How to remove a file [Git Style]

Git provides a way to remove files directly that you might find more convenient to use. To explore it, let's create a file like the previous step:

cd git_01
touch hello_world.txt # On Windows, you can create it graphically.
git add hello_world.txt # Add to stage(one step before commiting)
git commit -m "Add hello_world.txt" # commit the changes on stage
git push origin main # push the changes to remote repository

Now, let's remove it using git:

git rm hello_world.txt
git status

Image Note:

1. As it's shown in the image above, the file is removed directly. It's not present in the project's directory.
2. The changes are directly added to the stage and ready to be committed!

Let's commit and remove them:

git commit -m "Remove hello_world.txt"
git push origin main 

NOTE: The commit is tagged as delete mode

How to rename a file

Renaming a file is a bit trickier than removing it because we still want to have the file but in another name!

So as always, let's create a file with a typo in its name. We'll continue our experiments on git_01 project.

cd git_01
touch names_datbase.txt #  On Windows, you can create it graphically.
git add names_datbase.txt
git commit -m "names_database.txt"
git push origin main

Now, let's correct the typo by renaming it!

mv names_datbase.txt names_database.txt # On Windows, you can rename it graphically!
git status

Image Notes:

1. As it's evident, renaming a file compasses two steps:
   1. Removing it
   2. Creating a new one
2. Therefore, the previous name must be removed from git and the new one must be added!

Let's take the appropriate actions to completing the renaming process:

git rm names_datbase.txt # remove the one with typo
git add names_database.txt # Add the new one
git status

As depicted in the image above, git finds out that a renaming is going on and tags the files as renamed

The changes are applied to stage and they are ready to be committed:

git commit -m "[Fix-Typo] Rename names_datbase.txt to names_database.txt"
git push origin main # push the changes to remote repository!

NOTE: Even in the commit message it mentions the renaming process!

How to rename a file [Git Style]

Git also provides a way to rename files directly that you might find more convenient to use. To explore it, let's create a file containing a typo like the previous section:

cd git_01
touch names_datbase.txt #  On Windows, you can create it graphically.
# There is a typo in the name of the file!
git add names_datbase.txt
git commit -m "names_database.txt"
git push origin main

In order to correct the intentionally introduced typo, we can use git mv:

git mv names_datbase.txt names_database.txt 
git status

Image Notes:

1. git mv is git command can be executed in any operation-systems(os) like Windows and Linux
2. The renaming process is done automatically
3. The changes are added to stage automatically as well and are ready to be committed!

git commit -m "[Fix-Typo] Rename names_datbase.txt to names_database.txt"
git push origin main

NOTE: the commit is tagged as rename!