Gitlet

Project Overview

Gitlet is a lightweight version control system that implements the core functionality of Git. This project was developed to gain a deeper understanding of how version control systems work under the hood, with a focus on the data structures and algorithms that power Git.

Features

Gitlet implements the following core Git features:

• Commits: Save snapshots of your files
• Branches: Create independent lines of development
• Merging: Combine changes from different branches
• Remote repositories: Push and pull changes to/from remote repositories
• Conflict resolution: Handle conflicting changes between branches

Technical Implementation

Gitlet is implemented in Java and uses the following key components:

• Content-addressable storage: Files are stored based on their content hash
• Directed acyclic graph (DAG): Represents the history of commits
• Serialization: Persists objects to disk for durability
• SHA-1 hashing: Generates unique identifiers for commits and blobs
• Tree data structure: Efficiently represents directory structures

Command-Line Interface

Gitlet provides a command-line interface similar to Git, supporting the following commands:

$ gitlet init # Initialize a new Gitlet repository $ gitlet add [file] # Add file contents to the staging area $ gitlet commit [msg] # Record changes to the repository $ gitlet rm [file] # Remove file from working directory and staging area $ gitlet log # Display commit history $ gitlet global-log # Display all commits ever made $ gitlet find [msg] # Find commit with a given message $ gitlet status # Show the status of the working directory $ gitlet checkout # Restore working directory files $ gitlet branch [name] # Create a new branch $ gitlet rm-branch # Delete a branch $ gitlet reset [commit] # Reset current branch head to commit $ gitlet merge [branch] # Join two development histories together

Learning Outcomes

Developing Gitlet provided valuable insights into:

• Persistent data structures and their applications
• Graph algorithms for navigating commit history
• File I/O and serialization techniques
• Designing intuitive command-line interfaces
• Implementing complex merge algorithms
• Testing strategies for version control systems

Future Enhancements

Planned improvements to Gitlet include:

• Implementing interactive rebasing
• Adding support for submodules
• Improving performance for large repositories
• Creating a simple GUI interface
• Supporting hooks for custom workflows