Keil and Git are central to my microcontrollers class, but I'm still struggling to understand how they work together. While trying to return my project to the state of my first lab assignment and undo some edits, I accidentally deleted my main.c file. I'm not sure how to recover it or what to learn first, and my professor and teaching assistants can't provide direct solutions because they don't want to give away assignment answers. What's the safest way to restore the file and begin learning these tools?
2 Answers
For learning, work through Git’s basic workflow separately from your class assignment: check the status, inspect the log, create small commits, and practice switching between commits in a throwaway folder. The key concepts are working tree, staging area, commits, branches, and recovering earlier states. Make a backup of your project before experimenting, and commit often so mistakes are easier to undo.
Your file may still be recoverable. First, run `git reflog` to see where HEAD pointed before the reset or other history-changing command. Once you find the commit containing the file, restore just that file with `git checkout -- main.c` or, with newer Git versions, `git restore --source= -- main.c`. Avoid commands like `git clean -fd` until you understand them, since they can permanently remove untracked files.
Thanks, that gives me a concrete place to start. I’ll look through the reflog and try restoring only main.c instead of resetting the whole project.