CS6300 Assignment 2- Git Usage Solution

In this assignment, you will get familiar with Git and some of its main features. The assignment assumes that you are working from the command line, and we will simulate the presence of multiple users using two terminal windows. If you are already familiar with Git and a specific Git client, feel free to use that, as long as you do what the assignment requires.

https://github.gatech.edu/gt-omscs-se-2025summer/6300Summer25<your GT username>.git

Notes:
● We will not be able to give you access to REPO until you activate your GT GitHub account, (i.e., you must have logged at least once into https://github.gatech.edu/).



If you are not familiar with Git and feel completely lost, we suggest that you have a second look at the Git demo in P1L4 and mimic the steps in the demo on your machine, taking into account that the demo uses a standard GitHub and not a GT GitHub repository. In addition, you can also take the tutorial at http://try.github.io/levels/1/challenges/1, which should further get you familiar with Git’s basic concepts.

We also suggest that you use GitHub's "Network" view to monitor the state of your local and remote repository throughout the assignment. To do so, go to the GT GitHub page for your REPO, select menu "Insights" at the top, and then select the "Network" tab at the left. In this way, you will have a visual representation of how the repository evolves, which can be very useful for better understanding Git and how it operates. Other pages in GT GitHub show the list of commits and the tags (under ‘releases’). Furthermore, we provide a screenshot of how your repository should look at the end of each part of the assignment, which you can use as a reference. You can also run "git log --graph" from the command line, which outputs a text-based representation of the same information, but we do not provide a reference output for this representation.

mistake while working on REPO and you wanted to restart from a clean slate, in most cases you should be able to do so by executing the repo reset instructions.
Assignment Instructions:
Preliminary note: We strongly recommend that you (1) clone your GitHub repo using
HTTPS and (2) use a credential helper to tell Git to remember your GitHub username and password, so that you don’t have to re-login every time. You can find instructions on how to do so here: https://help.github.com/articles/caching-your-github-password-in-git/#platform-all
Part 1 (Terminal 1)
Before you start, make sure to specify your name and email address using the command “git config”, if you haven’t already.
1. Open a terminal window
2. Create and go to directory User1
3. Clone REPO
4. This should create a directory called 6300Summer25<your GT username> under directory User1.
5. Go to directory 6300Summer25<your GT username> (here you can also open the Network view in GT GitHub and start monitoring how your repository evolves)
6. Make sure that the directory contains a file called MyPrivateRepo
7. Create and go to directory Assignment2 (under 6300Summer25<your GT username>)
8. Create a file called myinfo.txt that contains only one line with your first and last name. Ensure that the file extension is correct for this and later files.
9. Commit the file to your local repo with comment “Added myinfo file”
10. Create a branch called “development” and switch to it
11. Create a file called dev1.txt that contains the text “Dev 1 file”.
12. Commit the file to your local repo (it should be in branch “development”) with comment “Added dev1 file”
13. Switch to the “main” branch
14. Edit file myinfo.txt and add your GT Email (e.g., gpburdell27@gatech.edu) on the next line.
15. Commit the file to your local repo with comment “Edited myinfo file”
16. Merge the “development” branch into the “main” branch with commit message “Merge #1”
17. Push all branches to the remote repository

At this point, your remote repository should look like the one in the figure below in the "Network" view on GT GitHub. If it doesn’t, it means that you made a mistake in one of the steps.


Part 2 (Terminal 2)
1. Open a second terminal window
2. Create and go to directory User2
3. Clone REPO
4. Just like before, this should create a directory called 6300Summer25<your GT username> under directory User2
5. Go to directory 6300Summer25<your GT username>/Assignment2
6. Switch to the “development” branch
7. Create a file called dev2.txt that contains the text “Dev 2 file”.
8. Commit the file to your local repo (it should be in branch “development”) with comment “Added dev2 file”
9. Create a branch called “temp” and switch to it
10. Create a file called mytemp.txt that contains the text “Mytemp file”.
11. Commit the file to your local repo (it should be in branch “temp”) with comment “Added mytemp file”
12. Create and commit to branch “development”, with the comment “Added dev3 file”, a file called dev3.txt that contains the text “Dev 3 file”.
13. Merge the “temp” branch into the “development” branch with commit message “Merge #2”
14. Merge the “development” branch into the “main” branch with commit message “Merge #3”
15. In the main branch, edit file myinfo.txt and add the semester and year (i.e., “Summer 2025”) in a separate line.
16. Commit the file to your local repo with comment “Edited myinfo file again”
17. Push all branches to the remote repository.

At this point, your remote repository should look like the one in the figure below in the "Network" view on GT GitHub. If it doesn’t, it means that you made a mistake in one of the steps.


Part 3 (Terminal 1)
1. Go back to the first terminal
2. Make sure to be in branch “main”
3. Edit file myinfo.txt and add this text on the next single line of the file, using your own username: “6300Summer25<your GT username>”
4. Commit the file to your local repo with comment “Edited myinfo file for the third time”
5. Push the main branch (not the other branches) to the remote repository. To do so, you will have to pull changes (using merge strategy, i.e. do NOT rebase) from the remote repository and suitably handle conflicts. In handling conflicts, make sure not
to lose any content, not to have any of the extra text added by Git to mark the conflicting parts, and to preserve the order of the information as it appears in the assignment on four separate lines: first and last name, GT email, semester, and repository name (i.e., 6300Summer25<your GT username>). Use commit message “Final merge with conflicts fixed” for the additional commit after merging and handling the conflicts.
6. Tag the current version of the main as “V1” and push the tag to the remote repository. Use a LIGHTWEIGHT tag.
At this point you are done, and your remote repository should look like the one in the figure below in the "Network" view on GT GitHub. If it doesn’t, it means that you made a mistake in one of the steps. Given the fact that this assignment is fairly simple, as it mainly consists of executing the provided steps, we expect the network view to match the figure below exactly, with branch labels as shown and no missing or extra commits. We will deduct points if this is not the case.




Similarly, we expect all the complete commit messages, branches, the folder, the lightweight tag, the tag name (V1), file names, file extensions (.txt), and the content of the files in the repo to be correct to the letter. Do not include extra labels, any default text, or additional content in your files, tags or messages. Review the network view, your commits list, the files, and the tag page.

As stated above, if your network view differs from the one provided, it means that you made a mistake in following the provided instructions, so you should try solving the assignment again before posting screenshots of your network and asking for suggestions. Please keep in mind that this is a fairly simple assignment in which all you have to do is to perform the provided steps, so you should not really need any external help.

Here are some additional views from GitHub that you can use to further check your submission:


Submission
To submit your solution, you should:
● Retrieve the commit ID for your submission by running “git log -1” in Terminal 1 after the last (successful) command--the commit ID is the long hexadecimal number after "commit".
● Submit on Gradescope a file, called submission.txt that contains, in two separate lines (1) your GT username and (2) the commit ID for your submission. For example, the content of file submission.txt for George P. Burdell could look something like the following: submission.txt
gpburdell1
81b2f59
● As soon as you submit, your assignment will be graded by checking that your graph is correct and that you created the right files with the right content. After that, you will see a report with your grade and some corresponding feedback. The feedback should be self-explanatory, but please let us know if something is not clear.
● The grade you will see on Gradescope is your actual grade for the assignment.
Repo Reset Instructions:

● IMPORTANT:
○ These are instructions that you should follow only if you mess up your REPO (eg. you have an incorrect commit message, or commited the wrong thing at the wrong time). Please don’t ask us to reset your repo, as we would simply run the same instructions described below, which is something you can do without our help.
● Run “git log” from within your local repository
● Run in each of the two terminals (one for User1 directory and the other one for User2 directory), and from the root of your repo (directory 6300Summer25<your GT username>)
○ git checkout main
○ git branch -D development temp
○ git push origin :development
○ git push origin :temp
○ git tag -d V1
○ git push origin :V1
○ git reset --hard <last commit ID>
○ git push --force
● After resetting the state, there is no need to re-clone the repository (i.e., there is no need to perform the first 5 steps of the instructions).