9 Glossary terms

Terms and definitions

Commit: A command to make edits to multiple files and treat that collection of edits as a single change

Commit files: A stage where the changes made to files are safely stored in a snapshot in the Git directory

Commit message: A summary and description with contextual information on the parts of the code or configuration of the commit change

Diff: A command to find the differences between two files

DNS zone file: A configuration file that specifies the mappings between IP addresses and host names in your network

Git: A free open source version control system available for installation on Unix based platforms, Windows and macOS

Git directory: A database for a Git project that stores the changes and the change history

Git log: A log that displays commit messages

Git staging area: A stage where the changes to files are ready to be committed

Modified files: A stage where changes have been made to a file, but the have not been stored or committed

Patch: A command that can detect that there were changes made to the file and will do its best to apply the changes

Repository: An organization system of files that contain separate software projects

Source Control Management (SCM): A tool similar to VCS to store source code

Stage files: A file maintained by Git that contains all the information about what files and changes are going to go into the next commit

Tracked: A file’s changes are recorded

Untracked: A file’s changes are not recorded

Version control systems (VCS): A tool to safely test code before releasing it, allow multiple people collaborate on the same coding projects together, and stores the history of that code and configuration