Dani Rebouças Ju

Dani Rebouças Ju

Psychometrician

Version Control using RStudio & GitHub

4 minute read

Published:

Summary (TL;DR)

  • File > New Project > Version Control > Git. Set up a copy of the GitHub repository (local repository) in your own computer.
  • Tools > Version Control > Pull Branches. Before you start to make any changes, make sure the file version in your computer is the most up-to-date. To do so, you will need to pull branches from the GitHub repository.
  • Tools > Commit…. Any time you make changes, you need to commit or save changes to your local repository. Add a descriptive commit message in case you ever need to go back to a certain version.
  • Tools > Version Control > Push Branch. After you commit, you will need to push the changes, or upload changes to GitHub.

How to set up a repository on your own computer (using RStudio)

You need to make sure

  1. Git is installed on your computer, and
  2. RStudio can find Git on your computer

Note: this can help.

If you have installed Git and RStudio knows how to find it, you can now set up a repository on your computer by copying the files to your computer.

Copy GitHub repository into your computer

This is called “cloning” the repository.

  1. Go to the oonagh repository on GitHub and click the green button “Code” on the upper hand corner. To clone with SSH or HTTPS, copy the address. You might need to authenticate into GitHub first.
  2. File > New Project > Version Control > Git. Under “Repository URL”, paste the address from step 1.
  3. Change the “Project directory name”, or keep it as is.
  4. Click on “Browse…” to choose the folder in which you will create a copy of the repository in your computer. This will create a folder in the directory you choose.
  5. Click “Create repository” to finish.

Open existing local repository into RStudio

  1. With RStudio open, go to File > Open Project…
  2. Select the folder corresponding to your local repository, which in our example is “oonagh/”. You’re done!

Using version control with RStudio

Before starting to make any changes to an existing file, please make sure the version on your computer is current by downloading (pulling) the most up-to-date version from the GitHub repository: Tools > Version Control > Pull Branches.

Upload changes made to an existing file

  1. After you have edited the file, save it and commit (save changes to your local git repository): Tools > Version Control > Commit….
  2. On the Commit window, check the box or boxes under the “Change” tab to stage (signal to git that you want to commit the file) your changes.
  3. Add a “Commit message” on the designated space in upper right corner. This message should be something descriptive, related to the changes you have made.
  4. Then click “Commit”. You will now see the message “Your branch is ahead of ‘origin/master’ by 1 commit.” on top of the commit window.
  5. To upload updated files to GitHub, go to Tools > Version Control > Push Branch. You should now be able to see your updated file on the GitHub repository.

Upload new file to GitHub

Suppose you have been working on a file you wish to share on GitHub. This example uses a markdown (.md) file, but you can follow the same steps for any file format.

  1. If you have set up a local copy of the repository on GitHub, you can proceed to step 2. Otherwise, go to the previous section.
  2. Make sure the file is in the folder of the local copy of the repository, and that in RStudio you have opened the project of your local repository.
  3. Click Tools > Commit… and check the to commit the new file under the “Change” tab.
  4. Add a “Commit message” on the designated space in upper right corner. This message should be something descriptive, related to the changes you have made.
  5. Then click “Commit”. You will now see the message “Your branch is ahead of ‘origin/master’ by 1 commit.” on top of the commit window.
  6. Go to Tools > Version Control > Push Branch to upload changes to GitHub. You should now be able to see your updated file on the GitHub repository.