---
title: "Using Git from Python"
description: "is a python api for your git repos, it can be quite handy when you need to work with git from python."
date: 2022-04-30
published: false
tags:
  - python
  - cli
  - git
template: til
---


`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`.

<a href="/screenshot-to-blog/" class="wikilink" data-title="How I Quickly Capture Screenshots directly into My Blog" data-description="When I am creating blog posts it&#39;s often helpful to add screenshots to them to illustrate what I see on my screen. Sometimes I lack good screenshots in my..." data-date="2022-04-30">How I Quickly Capture Screenshots directly into My Blog</a>

## Installation

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

``` python
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.

``` python
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](https://gitpython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/tutorial.html#tutorial-label)
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.

``` python
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.

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

<a href="/git-find-deleted-files/" class="wikilink" data-title="git find deleted files" data-description="It&#39;s nearly impossible to completely loose a file if it is commited to git. It&#39;s likely harder to fully remove the file than it is to recover it, but how do..." data-date="2022-02-28">git find deleted files</a>

> 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.