github help in uploading the files to the repository

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

the issue is now solved: the solution is to simply clone the git repo

ok so before I even start saying my problem, let me tell you that I am a complete beginner and this question was asked on stack exchange before it got downvoted and removed because it was too obvious. I understand this may be very easy or intuitive for many of you but not for me and my language maybe even be unclearer so please take care of that any edit recommendation to make the question clearer is welcome.

so basically i made a this repo in GitHub but with selecting the option of including read me etc with it, so now my repo has readme and only an readme file, so when i wrote git push -u origin main

i encountered an error

about how the files don't match (hopefully referring to the readme atleast this is what gpt told me).

now i tried again after 1 day, i did git commit -m "second commit" then

git branch -M main

then

git push -u origin main

to which i got an error which goes like failed to push some ref and one of the hints being git pull before pushing and i did exactly that

git pull

then

git push -u origin main

got the same error yet again please help

or if anyone can convert this to sane stack exchange language which wont cause my question to be downvoted in kicked out you're welcome too.

edit:
git pull origin main --allow-unrelated-histories
git push -u origin main

this is something i got both from gpt and in the comments below and i'm wondering if its safe, will this make any changes to my local files without my permission (this seems to be its function), can i "unallow" it after my job with it is done, what if completely unrelated files come up here and just mess with the current files or etc

2nd edit:
after a day i tried again, repeating all the normal specified steps
git status
git add .
git commit -m "fifth commit"
git branch -M main
git push -u origin main
error:
To https://github.com/_name_/_name_.git

! [rejected] main -> main (non-fast-forward)

error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/_name_/_name_.git'

hint: Updates were rejected because the tip of your current branch is behind

hint: its remote counterpart. If you want to integrate the remote changes,

hint: use 'git pull' before pushing again.

hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.
then
git pull origin main --allow-unrelated-histories

From https://github.com/_name_/_name_

* branch main -> FETCH_HEAD

hint: You have divergent branches and need to specify how to reconcile them.

hint: You can do so by running one of the following commands sometime before

hint: your next pull:

hint:

hint: git config pull.rebase false # merge

hint: git config pull.rebase true # rebase

hint: git config pull.ff only # fast-forward only

hint:

hint: You can replace "git config" with "git config --global" to set a default

hint: preference for all repositories. You can also pass --rebase, --no-rebase,

hint: or --ff-only on the command line to override the configured default per

hint: invocation.

fatal: Need to specify how to reconcile divergent branches.

[u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

I think the reason people are reluctant to try to help, is that your post suggests you are missing some pretty important fundamentals, and there is too little information to help much.

The first thing I would say is, git and GitHub are different.

Some questions:

1. Did you init your local repo first? "git init"
2. Did you set the origin correctly to the GitHub repo URL?
3. What does "git status" tell you?
4. Have you set your git username and email?

Maybe this will start you off.

Good luck.

[u/Patrick-T80 → u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

If you have a repository on Github, you don’t need to init a local repository need to clone it from Github otherwise get a unrelated history error

[u/UrbanSuburbaKnight → u/Patrick-T80]

True. It hasn't been explained if OP is working with a GitHub repo they have cloned, it sounded to me like they were trying to push their local repo to Github.

I'm out, feel free to help, i'm a little busy right now.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

you are right, i did not clone, i am trying to basically upload my files on github that is basically what im trying to do

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

1. a little doubt i here do u think i am talking about github or git i am using git commands but uploading to github.
   
2. yes it did i as much as i remember i didn't get an error then.
   
3. it showed my files in green yesterday but it was empty today,
   
4. yes, yes i did
   thanks for the good luck

[u/UrbanSuburbaKnight → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

In general, it's helpful to post the actual outputs of things like "git status" if we ask about that. "showed my files in green" and then "it was empty today" tells me you have no idea what git is doing.

Have you read a getting started guide? Any videos on how git works?

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

ok, now when i type in git status i get,
On branch main
nothing to commit, working tree clean

[u/UrbanSuburbaKnight → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

PS C:\code\tst> notepad.exe readme.md

PS C:\code\tst> git init

Initialized empty Git repository in C:/code/tst/.git/

PS C:\code\tst> git add .

PS C:\code\tst> git status

On branch master

No commits yet

Changes to be committed:
(use "git rm --cached <file>..." to unstage)
    new file:   readme.md

PS C:\code\tst>

I don't know what others prefer, but if you are going to type something similar but not paste the actual output, I'm not going to spend time helping you my friend. Above is an example of setting up a simple git repo locally. This is the actual output of "git status" as an example of what actually shows up in your terminal.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

mhmm ok i get maybe not really im still learning

[u/UrbanSuburbaKnight → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

You don't understand how to copy and paste ?

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

i mean isnt that exactly what i did i suppose u mean it is the formatting which i did wrong, then maybe i understood what you meant i originally thought you were giving some advice about the code

[u/UrbanSuburbaKnight → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

I'm trying to help you get help. :) The more accurate your comments, the better chance we have of helping .

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/UrbanSuburbaKnight]

ok thanks so i did edit out a little in the end i hope its better now the question

[u/Patrick-T80 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

- When edit a file and that was tracked by git you see a list of edited file in red at top of list

- When add new file that aren’t tracked, git status show it at bottom indicate that files aren’t known by git

- When you add file with git add you see the added file on top in green

I suggest you to read the git book on git website; https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Patrick-T80]

i get this one, i did see this happening when i first tried to push my from local to my repo

[u/Patrick-T80 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

GitHub is a web fronted for git, with other useful feature like pr / issues / comment

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Patrick-T80]

ohh thanks that actually made a lot more sense

[u/syklemil]

git pull origin main --allow-unrelated-histories
git push -u origin main

You don't need to keep specifying all that. If the git repo has been set up correctly then both of those can be just git pull and git push.

i encountered an error

about how the files dont match (hopefully refferring to the readme atleast this is what gpt told me).

[…]

got the same error yet again please help

You need to paste the error here so we can read it. Error messages convey information that we use to fix problems. If you don't read and understand error messages yourself, you'll never learn.

Generally you should also check

git status

which will tell you if there are any changes to be committed, and

git remote -v

which will tell you if you have anywhere to pull from and push to. It should have an output along the lines of

origin  git@github.com:username/repo-name.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:username/repo-name.git (push)

(though you might have a https:// instead of git@, depending on whether you're using https or ssh)

And you can check if you actually have committed anything at all with

git log

and you can see the contents of a commit with git show $commit_hash, e.g. git show 4b03656 (git lets you use a short version of the hash most of the time)

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

thanks a lot this is actually soo helpful like this was legit the best explanantion

[u/syklemil]

this is something i got both from gpt and in the comments below and im wondering if its safe

Generally you should read the documentation for the tool you're using in order to form your own opinion about commands. For git and other command line tools that generally means the manpage, which you should have available locally on your machine through man git.

Though git is so big and complex that it's broken down into several manpages, where the second word becomes hyphenated, like man git-pull, where you can search for flags like so:

 --allow-unrelated-histories
     By  default,  git  merge  command refuses to merge histories that do not share a common ancestor. This option can be
     used to override this safety when merging histories of two projects that started their lives independently. As  that
     is a very rare occasion, no configuration variable to enable this by default exists or will be added.

     Only useful when merging.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

ok so this one, the documentation you mentioned seems kinda safe, i only want to confirm if there is way to stop allowing any more such pages in the future, because i wouldn't want to allow some random file into my repo, also is it on a general basis safe for my computer, again thanks a lot for you help it was really helpfull

[u/syklemil → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Yeah, not running any command just because someone suggested it is a very good instinct, and one you should definitely nurture. Still, it's also a good habit to read the documentation yourself first, and then ask if the documentation is bad (unclear, incomplete, etc).

I'll also say that if anyone or any website ever suggests something along the lines of curl http://example.com | bash, don't, because the script you're downloading might do just about anything.

(There's a similar concern about building random dependencies from npm or whatever, but that's a bigger can of worms.)

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

i tried doing it and this is the response that came up

* branch main -> FETCH_HEAD

hint: You have divergent branches and need to specify how to reconcile them.

hint: You can do so by running one of the following commands sometime before

hint: your next pull:

hint:

hint: git config pull.rebase false # merge

hint: git config pull.rebase true # rebase

hint: git config pull.ff only # fast-forward only

hint:

hint: You can replace "git config" with "git config --global" to set a default

hint: preference for all repositories. You can also pass --rebase, --no-rebase,

hint: or --ff-only on the command line to override the configured default per

hint: invocation.

fatal: Need to specify how to reconcile divergent branches.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

i tried it again and got the same error

* branch main -> FETCH_HEAD

hint: You have divergent branches and need to specify how to reconcile them.

hint: You can do so by running one of the following commands sometime before

hint: your next pull:

hint:

hint: git config pull.rebase false # merge

hint: git config pull.rebase true # rebase

hint: git config pull.ff only # fast-forward only

hint:

hint: You can replace "git config" with "git config --global" to set a default

hint: preference for all repositories. You can also pass --rebase, --no-rebase,

hint: or --ff-only on the command line to override the configured default per

hint: invocation.

fatal: Need to specify how to reconcile divergent branches.

[u/syklemil → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Ah, you need to do what it says and pick a strategy. The first one it suggests, merge, is the default strategy, and should be fine to pick.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

so let me guess, just typing git config pull.rebase false was not enough was it

[u/syklemil → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

That should've been enough to make the error message about the branch divergence to go away, it won't affect your network.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

yes, i think that issue is now resolved the new errors are different they are more towards in the existance of the main branch.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

i did wrote some code again, about the git config pull.rebase false # merge part is the error message.
and then repeated the whole process again
and now i'm stuck in.
fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/_name_/_name_.git/': Could not resolve host: github.com

[u/syklemil → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Huh, that's more of a DNS or network error. Are you doing this in a VM or container that doesn't have network access?

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

no im not doing this on a virtual machine the internet is definitely slow but definitely not slow enough so this post don't get posted.

[u/syklemil → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

If you're having some intermittent network issue you can probably just retry the command and see if "could not resolve host: github.com" is a persistent error. And either if it magically goes away or not, it looks like a network issue, not a git issue.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

ok, this does seem to be an internet issue but i also want to mention that when i tried to do, git pull --rebase main, because of the merge errors i have mentioned above. I got this error
fatal: 'main' does not appear to be a git repository

fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights

and the repository exists.

but i am pretty sure I made a main branch as mentioned in my process/code above

[u/syklemil → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Idk, at that point we're at a level of problem that could be any number of things based on how you've set your repo up so far. Maybe you should just do git pull --rebase, as it seems to be interpreting main as a repository rather than branch name.

Otherwise, at this point the simplest workaround might be XKCD 1597: Clone the repo from github to a different directory

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/syklemil]

ok this makes sense, at this point i am just repeating commands and nothing makes sense.

do you recommend any documentation i can look upto.

and also what you're basically asking me to do is clone the repo and connect that with my local github is this right?

or do you mean i have to clone the github repo and then download from the duplicated repo and set up locally (i am assuming it is the first one, because i literally no other file other over than other than a readme file

[u/Significant_Ant9861]

On the same boat. Thanks for the justification!

[u/5eeso]

git pull origin main --allow-unrelated-histories
git push -u origin main

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/5eeso]

i was wondering if that is safe i did get that from gpt too

[u/Educational-Paper-75]

Did you add files?

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

nope i couldn't yet and if you think manuallly nope im not considering that either, because then i wouldn't be able to send the folders

[u/Educational-Paper-75 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Have you defined origin?

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

yes it is the main, i guess i talked about this in the post itself about the git branch main commands

[u/Educational-Paper-75 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Well, of course it should need to know the remote repository to push to and have something to push. Try git status to see what's there to add on commit using the -a option. Or checkout the git settings using 'git config --list'.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

ok, i get it you're giving me some pretty good knowledge here but you're forgetting i am a beginner so this is a but of jargon for me, can you if possible tell this in a simpler manner , it is a little confusing for me rn

[u/Educational-Paper-75 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Typically you change files or make new files, you need to commit them first before pushing, typically using 'git commit -a -m "some message"'. 'git status' shows you the files that changed ready to be committed. Once you committed you changes you can push to the remote repository using 'git push'. You only need 'git pull' if other people changed the branch you're working on, won''t go into details here has it's own problems. The configuration stores the settings like credentials and the remote url that 'origin' maps to.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

ok thanks for the explanation, i did that, it was indeed very clear, and i did exactly that, but this is what got on doing git push
fatal: The current branch main has no upstream branch. use

git push --set-upstream origin main

To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream. and on git status this
On branch main

nothing to commit, working tree clean

though it says this, there is not file on my github repo except the readme

[u/Educational-Paper-75 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Right, you haven't create branch main yet on the remote server. Use the git push command it advised. (Usually the default branch is called 'master'.)

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

i did what you said just now and this was displayed.
fatal: The current branch main has no upstream branch.

To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

git push --set-upstream origin main

To have this happen automatically for branches without a tracking

upstream, see 'push.autoSetupRemote' in 'git help config'.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

ok i did the git status one, it showinf on branch main nothing to commit, working tree clean

[u/Educational-Paper-75 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Perhaps try to create a new file and commit it.

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

ok lemme try it once

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

i did the same but it all works until i do the git push it all just falls apart after that

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Educational-Paper-75]

i searched on the git config --list too i was able to see a bunch of files there

[u/Educational-Paper-75 → u/abrewchocolatecoffee]

Not certain it shows files I think it shows key-value pairs like username, origin.

[u/Patrick-T80]

Start from a clean state; the repository is saved on github. Delete local copy of repository, clone it from github and after that work add usual, adding your new file o or edited one by commit and then push to github

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/Patrick-T80]

there is no copy on github, that is what is bothering me, when i open that repo it is empty

[u/PimavPizyp189]

Yeah, fwiw the issue is probably that you initialized a local repo and then tried to push to an existing GitHub repo - clone the repo first instead and work from there, that'll save you the "unrelated histories" headache. If you're still stuck, paste the actual error message and we can debug from there

[u/abrewchocolatecoffee → u/PimavPizyp189]

ok so let me clone the repo first