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How to use git pull function? Let me tell you how I would usually push my first initial commit onto GitHub IF I already had some files on my local directory i.e. laptop.

  1. I’d create a new repository on GitHub and initialize it with a README file.

  2. I would then proceed to clone this onto my local directory (most of the time my desktop — make sure to cd into that folder):

     $ cd Desktop
     $ git clone https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git FOLDER_NAME
    
    • The link above is the remote URL which you can find in your GitHub repository by clicking the green button that says ‘Clone or Download’.

    • FOLDER_NAME is the name I want to give to my local folder; if I left this blank, it will automatically give the folder name the actual repository name I gave it on GitHub

    • This command also automatically sets your remote URL as the origin

  3. This will create a local copy of the repository on my local machine and will contain the README file.

  4. Then I would copy/cut all the files that I want to push to GitHub and paste them into the new folder containing the README file.

There is nothing wrong with doing it this way but I knew there was a way to do this without copying and pasting files and just using the command line.

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How to do it with just the command line

  1. Create a new repository on GitHub and initialize it with a README file

  2. Create a folder on your local machine

  3. Open terminal and move to that folder

     $ cd FOLDER
    
  4. Add the remote URL as origin

     $ git remote add origin https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git
    
  5. Now using the pull command, you can ‘pull’ down the README file onto the local folder

     $ git pull origin master
    
  6. Add your current files in the local folder to the staging area

     $ git add –-all
    
  7. Commit your changes

     $ git commit -m "your commit message e.g. First commit"
    
  8. Push your changes to the master branch

     $ git push origin master
    

So happy I can finally do it with the command line as oppose to faffing around with copying and pasting my files onto a cloned repository.

Hopefully this will also help those who are new to using Git and GitHub!

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This blog post has also been published on medium.