Branches

Notes

• A branch is a reference to an existing commit (not as intuitively thought as a chain of commits).

• A branch diverges from another branch only if the referenced commit shares an ancestor with another commit.

Commands

• Show branches

  • git branch --list, or simply git branch

  • git branch -r to list remote branches

  • git show-branch -a show a detailed list

  • git log --oneline --decorate --graph --all to show a visual diagram

• Create a branch

  • git branch <branch-name>

• Change to a branch, both are equivalent. Using switch is more unambiguous.

  • git checkout <branch-name>

  • git switch <branch-name>

• Rename a branch

  • git branch -m <new-name> rename current branch

  • git branch -m <old-name> <new-name> other branch

• Delete a local branch

  • git branch -d <branch-name> if fully merged

  • git branch -D <branch-name> if not fully merged, could result in data loss. Use with caution.

• Delete a remote branch

  • git push origin --delete <branch-name>