OPS435 Online Lab1

Introduction to git, github.com, and Python

Lab Objectives

• Using the "git clone" command to clone a repository into a new directory
• Set up account on github.com for creating, tracking, and managing a repository
• configure and explore the Python interpreter on matrix.senecacollege.ca

Overview

In this lab, you will create an account on github.com and follow the Github "Hello World guide" to create a new public repository on github to and explore the basic workflow of using github to track and manage revisions of software or other contents. The essential operations provided by Github includes

• creating new repository,
• creating a new branch,
• making changes to files,
• creating a pull request, and
• opening and merging a pull request.

You will then use the git client (git clone) on matrix.senecacollege.ca to access and download the contents of the repository you created on github. Note: if you have your own Linux VM ready, you can also install and use the git client on your VM.

You will also use the git client on matrix.senecacollege.ca to clone the repository on github.com which hosts the Python scripts for lab 1.

Study and execute the Python scripts downloaded from the lab 1 repository

Reference

• Github git Cheat sheet
• Github Hello World Guide

Glossary

• git - a distributed revision control system with rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to git's internals.
• github.com - a code hosting platform for version control and collaboration that lets people work together on software projects from anywhere.

Investigation 1 - git and github.com

Task 1: Create a Github.com account

• Start your web browser and go to github.com and use your own email (please note that Seneca's spam filter block email from github.com by default, if you use your Seneca email to sign up on github.com, you might have to re-configure your email spam filter to allow email from github.com in order to receive the confirmation message from github.com) to sign up for a new account if you don't already have one.
• Record your github.com user name on your lab logbook.
• email your github.com user name to your OPS435 professor from your Seneca email account.

Task 2: Create a project and make a pull request on GitHub

Follow the Github "Hello World Guid" here to perform the following activities:

• Create a repository
• Create a branch
• Make and commit changes
• Open a pull request, and
• Merge your pull request

Please make the following changes when following the guide:

• name the new repository using your Seneca user name instead of "hello-world".
• add your full name, and OPS435 section to the README file, do not post any other personal information there.

Task 3: Clone a Github.com repository into a new directory on a Linux system

You can do the following steps either on matrix.senecacollege.ca or on your CentOS 7 vm:

• login to matrix.senecacollege.ca or your CentOS 7 vm
• create a directory named ops435/lab1 under your home directory
• change your working directory to ~/ops435/lab1
• run the following git command to clone the repository you created in Task 2 on github.com

   git clone https://github.com/[your_github_user_name]/[your_seneca_user_name]

for example, if your github user name is "rc2030", and your seneca user name is rchan, the git command to clone the repository you created in Task 2 should be:

   git clone https://github.com/rc2030/rchan

• change your working directory to your cloned git repository, which should be ~/ops435/lab1/[your_seneca_user_name]
• run the following two commands and capture their output to the named files:

   git log > gitlog.txt

   tree -a > repo_tree.txt

• Make sure that gitlog.txt and repo_tree.txt are not empty. Review and study the contents of gitlog.txt and repo_tree.txt

LAB 1 SIGN-OFF Upload the following files individually to Blackboard

• gitlog.txt: contains the output of the command "git log" from Task 3
• repo_tree.txt: contains the output of the command "tree -a" from Task 3
• lab1_check.txt: contains the output of the command "python3 ./checkLab1.py -f -v"

Lab Review

1. What is a git repository?
2. What kinds of data can be stored in a git repository?
3. What is a git branch?
4. What is the name of the definitive branch in a git repository?
5. What is a "pull request" related to a branch in a git repository?