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Development Tools Git Basics Getting Started With Git Committing Changes

Chris Sunde
Chris Sunde
10,680 Points
Posted by Chris Sunde
Chris Sunde
10,680 Points

git commit on Mac

I'm following the Git basics tutorial in the Terminal on my Mac and when I get to the part where you type "git commit" in the command line and then add the comment "Added a README file.", I can't seem to save and close to complete the commit. In the tutorial and if you use Treehouse's Console, you can hit ^X to exit and save. But ^X in my Mac Terminal gives another menu and does not close. What am I missing?

2 Answers

Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points
Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points

It most likely opened Vim (its a text editor). type your commit message and then press Esc and then type :wq (w for write and q for quit) and see if it closes

Chris Sunde
Chris Sunde
10,680 Points
Chris Sunde
Chris Sunde
10,680 Points

Thanks, that worked! Is there any way to get the Mac Terminal or the "git commit" command to default to another text editor like Nano?

Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points
Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points

run the following command:

git config --global core.editor "nano"

however almost all of the time I just use the -m flag and type the commit message inline. that way you dont even have to bother with a text editor

git commit -m "some commit message here"
Kotaro Ninomiya
Kotaro Ninomiya
4,819 Points
Kotaro Ninomiya
Kotaro Ninomiya
4,819 Points

Stone, I tried the configure my default to nano, but received this:

error: key does not contain a section: core

Can you please help?

Clara Hembree
Clara Hembree
11,401 Points
Clara Hembree
Clara Hembree
11,401 Points

Thank you, Stone. And thank you too, Chris, for posting the question. I did a quick search and found a lot of documentation out there on how to use vim with the terminal, but all the posts I came across are several years old.