A learning project that reimplements a tiny slice of Git in C++. It's not a Git replacement and not meant to be - we are just reinventing the wheel to understand how a version-control tool tracks file changes under the hood.
The project is built around a small core (File, Repository, Git) and exposes that core through two front-ends: a command-line REPL and a Qt GUI.
Four operations on a single directory: init, add, commit, status.
REPL (sgit): a git> prompt. Type init, add, commit, status, or exit. add and commit prompt separately for the filename and message.
GUI (sgit-gui): a Qt window with two pages: pick a folder to init/open the repo, then pick files to add and commit through buttons.
Both front-ends use the same underlying core, so behavior is identical.
- C++17 compiler
- CMake 3.16 or newer
- Qt 6 (or Qt 5) - only if you want the GUI. The CLI builds with no Qt dependency.
Tested on Linux with GCC 14 and Qt 6. The CMake setup is portable; Windows and macOS should work but have not been verified.
cmake -B build
cmake --build buildThis produces:
build/sgit: the REPLbuild/sgit-gui: the Qt GUI (only if Qt was found at configure time)
If Qt isn't installed, the configure step prints GUI: Qt not found, sgit-gui will be skipped and the CLI still builds normally. Install Qt and reconfigure (rm -rf build && cmake -B build) to get the GUI.
./build/sgit /path/to/some/folderThe folder should be a throwaway directory (e.g. /tmp/myrepo), not your project root status lists every file in the directory and there's no ignore mechanism.
./build/sgit-guiUse the Browse buttons to select a folder, then files within it.
MIT. See LICENSE.