Git Branch in One minute

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What is a git branch?

Branch is a feature supported in the Git, that allow you to diverge from a main line of development and continue to do your work without messing with that main line.

On this article, i present the main git commands to handle the branches.

Listing branches

List local branches

git branch

List remote branches

Remote branch are all the branches in the server repository (you may are hosting your repo in github, gitlab or bitbucket)

git branch -r

List all branches

git branch -a

Creating branches

Create and switch to a branch

git checkout -b my-branch

The command above is a shorthand for those two commands below.

Create a branch

git branch my-branch

Switch to a branch

git checkout my-branch

Switch between branches

git checkout branch-name

Upload your branch to remote server

After creating your branch, for the first time, you should send the branch to the server with those commands.

git push -u origin branch-name

Or

 git push --set-upstream origin branch-name

But in next time, just do a normal push.

git push

Download a remote branch

git checkout --track origin/branch-name

Merge a branch to current branch

git merge branch-name

Imagine you want to copy/merge all changes/commits from a branch to another branch, you can use the commands below.

In this example, we are to copy all changes/commits from dev to main.

Switch to a branch

First we must switch to the branch that we want to put/paste the commits.

git checkout main

Merge

Then we need to merge/copy all changes/commits from the branch we want to.

git merge dev

Delete branch

Delete local branch

git branch -d branch-name

Force delete local branch

git branch -D branch-name

Delete remote branch

git push origin --delete branch-name

Refresh list of remote branches

After a remote branch is deleted, if still visible when you execute git branch -r, you should update the list using the command below.

git remote update origin --prune

Rename branch

Rename current branch

git branch -m new-branch-name

Rename a branch

git branch -m old-branch-name new-branch-name

References

Git - Branches in a Nutshell

Git Branches: List, Create, Switch to, Merge, Push, & Delete

Git - git-branch Documentation