# Clean master, version tags

2 messages from 2008-05-19 to 2008-05-19. Participants: Marcus, Shawn O. Pearce.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/13570

## Marcus, 2008-05-19 02:21

Subject: Clean master, version tags
Message-ID: <8345bd80805181921l36451957s2063395c65a42aea@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/8345bd80805181921l36451957s2063395c65a42aea%40mail.gmail.com

```
I created a lot of test files in the master, branch before Iearning
how to use branches. How do I safely remove all entries in master. The
branch should can be completely cleaned and leave no traces, so we
have a fresh start.

2) Is there a tutorial on how to tag versions and use the version name
as reference?

Thanks,

Marcus

```

## Shawn O. Pearce, 2008-05-19 02:31

Subject: Re: Clean master, version tags
Message-ID: <20080519023135.GW29038@spearce.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080519023135.GW29038%40spearce.org
In-Reply-To: <8345bd80805181921l36451957s2063395c65a42aea@mail.gmail.com>

```
Marcus <prima@wordit.com> wrote:
> I created a lot of test files in the master, branch before Iearning
> how to use branches. How do I safely remove all entries in master. The
> branch should can be completely cleaned and leave no traces, so we
> have a fresh start.

A couple of ways.

You can checkout the branch, then forcibly reset both the branch
and your working directory to some other revision, like say
origin's master.  Note this will overwrite any modified but not
committed files!

  git checkout master
  git reset --hard origin/master

or delete the branch and recreate it:

  git branch -D master
  git branch --track master origin/master

or just delete the branch and don't even have a master:

  git branch -D master

 
> 2) Is there a tutorial on how to tag versions and use the version name
> as reference?

Read git-tag's manpage.  Creating a tag is as easy as:

  git tag -a tagname

then you can later go back to that version with:

  git checkout tagname

if you have that version checked out you can find out what the
tag name was:

  git describe

you can also export that version as a tarball, even if you don't
have it checked out:

  git archive --format=tar tagname | gzip >tagname.tar.gz

Does that help any?  Tag names are treated almost like any other
revision identifier (commit SHA-1, branch name, etc.) in git.

-- 
Shawn.

```