Reference

Quick reference

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Navigating the shell

pwd

print working directory

ls

list directory :

• -l: list file information

• -lh: list human readable file information

cd

change directory

Interacting with files in the shell

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!!!

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

Further reading

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• 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 (GitHub Skills) and for using Git offline (Git-It).
• Atlassian has in-depth but clear tutorials on using git.
• Code4Lib 2008 lightning talk – Git and distributed cataloging: Slides by Galen Charlton drawing parallels between how git works and how cataloging should work.

Useful library-related Git repositories

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• DavidChouinard/mrc_to_csv: Python script for converting MARC21 files to CSV, originally designed for the Harvard Libraries MARC21 records.
• pymarc/pymarc: Python package for reading, modifying, and writing records in MARC21 format.
  • Package description: Pymarc
• umd-mith/git-intro: Slides introducing Git, aimed at Digital Humanities students, hosted on GitHub pages.
  • Rendered slides: High level intro to Git
• ProjectMirador/mirador: NodeJS package providing an interactive image viewer for cultural heritage websites.
  • Package website: Mirador
• edsu/microdata: Python package for extracting microdata (text given a machine-readable label) from HTML5.
• dhtaxonomy/TaDiRAH: Taxonomy of Digital Research Activities in the Humanities.
  • As rendered by the Dariah Vocabs Service: TaDiRAH
• OpenAPC/openapc-de: Dataset of information on fee-based open access publishing.
  • Viewer for the dataset: OpenAPC
• JiscMonitor/allapc: Python package providing an API and reporting system for aggregated APC (article publication charge) data.
• fbkarsdorp/python-course: Tutorial and introduction to programming with Python, aimed at students/researchers in the humanities and social sciences, maintained as a set of Jupyter Notebooks.
  • Rendered version: Python Programming for the Humanities
• openingscience/book: The evolving guide on how the Web is changing research, collaboration and scholarly publishing, maintained as Markdown files and rendered using Jekyll (also used by GitHub Pages).
  • Rendered book: Opening Science
• programminghistorian/jekyll: A collection of lessons useful to historians and people working in libraries, maintained as Markdown files and hosted by GitHub Pages.
  • Rendered site: Programming Historian