Using Git From Python

GitPython is a python api for your git repos, it can be quite handy when you need to work with git from python.

Use Case

I recently made myself a handy tool for making screenshots in python and it need to do a git commit and push from within the script. For this I reached for GitPython.

screenshot-to-blog

Installation

GitPython is a python library hosted on pypi that we will want to install into our virtual environments using pip.

        
pip install GitPython

Create a Repo Object

Import Repo from the git library and create an instance of the Repo object by giving it a path to the directory containing your .git directory.

        
from git import Repo
repo = Repo('~/git/waylonwalker.com/')

Two interfaces

from the docs

It provides abstractions of git objects for easy access of repository data, and additionally allows you to access the git repository more directly using either a pure python implementation, or the faster, but more resource intensive git command implementation.

I only needed to use the more intensive but familar to me git command implementation to get me project off the ground. There is a good tutorial to get you started with their pure python implementation in their docs.

Status

Requesting the git status can be done as follows.

note I have prefixed my commands with >>> to distinguish between the command I entered and the output.

        
>>> print(repo.git.status())

On branch main
Your branch is ahead of 'origin/main' by 1 commit.
  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
        blog/

You can even pass in flags that you would pass into the cli.

        
>>> print(repo.git.status("-s"))
?? blog/

log

Example of using the log.

        
print(repo.git.log('--oneline', '--graph'))

* 0d28bd8 fix broken image link
* 3573928 wip screenshot-to-blog
* fed9abc wip screenshot-to-blog
* d383780 update for wsl2
* ad72b14 wip screenshot-to-blog
* 144c2f3 gratitude-180

Find Deleted Files

We can even do things like find all files that have been deleted and the hash they were deleted.

        
print(repo.git.log('--diff-filter', 'D', '--name-only', '--pretty=format:"%h"'))

git-find-deleted-files

full post on finding deleted files

My Experience

This library seemed pretty straightforward and predicatable once I realized there were two main implementations and that I would already be familar with the more intensive git command implementation.