Debugging with Git: Bisect and Blame

Debugging with Git: Bisect and Blame

Debugging is an essential part of development, and Git provides powerful tools to help you identify issues. In this blog, we’ll explore git bisect and git blame for pinpointing problematic commits and tracking changes.

Table of Contents

• Using git bisect for Binary Search
• Using git blame to Track Changes
• Practical Examples
• Exercise: Practicing Debugging Tools

Using git bisect for Binary Search

git bisect performs a binary search through your commit history to identify the commit that introduced a bug. Here’s how it works:

1. Start the bisect process:

  git bisect start
            

2. Mark the current commit as bad:

  git bisect bad
            

3. Mark a known good commit:

  git bisect good <commit-hash>
            

4. Test each step until Git identifies the problematic commit.

Using git blame to Track Changes

git blame shows who last modified each line of a file and in which commit. This is useful for understanding the history of specific lines of code.

  git blame <file-name>
          

Practical Example: Debugging with git bisect

Suppose you notice a bug in your code but aren’t sure when it was introduced. You can use git bisect to locate the commit that caused the issue:

1. Identify the last known good commit:

  git log --oneline
            

2. Compare the file with the good commit:

  git diff <good-commit-hash> -- <file-name>
            

Exercise: Practicing Debugging Tools

Practice git bisect:

• Introduce a bug intentionally in your project.
• Use git bisect to locate the commit that caused the issue.

Practice git blame:

• Modify a file with multiple commits.
• Use git blame to track changes and identify contributors.

Coming Up Next

In the next part of this series, we’ll explore customizing Git with aliases and configuration settings to streamline your workflow.