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Philip Powis
Philip Powis
7,625 Points
Posted by Philip Powis
Philip Powis
7,625 Points

Getting Started with Git: Committing Changes Issue

Hello,

I am following along in this video, and in the my_really_cool_projects folder we are using git commit for the first time.

In the video, Tommy does this and it opens up in nano. On my mac, it opens in VIM. I can't figure out what to do next? I don't know the vim shortcut for Save.

At any rate, I'd like to be able to open git commit in nano so I can follow the tutorials.

In addition to this, I now have a different problem in that if I try to run git commit again, I get:

Swap file ".git/.COMMIT_EDITMSG.swp" already exists!

Can someone help me get back on track?

1 Answer

Philip Powis
Philip Powis
7,625 Points
Philip Powis
Philip Powis
7,625 Points

Solved this on my own. I figured out how to set nano as the default editor for git. The command to do this is:

git config --global core.editor nano

This got me back on track!

I also noticed there was another solution provided in the notes for the video. Not sure what the difference is, but this seemed to work for the level that I am operating at :)

Tommy Morgan
Tommy Morgan
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Tommy Morgan
Tommy Morgan
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Hey Philip Powis -

The difference is that the solution I provided in the teaching notes sets the default editor for your console session, whereas using the git config like you did makes it the default editor only for git. For the purposes of this course, they're equivalent :)

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points
James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

Tommy Morgan I'm guessing in the teacher notes you used export EDITOR=nano?