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Git

Branches​

List branches​

List existing branches. Current branch will be highlighted with an asterisk.

git branch --list

List existing remote branches.

git branch -r
# or
git branch --remote

List all existing branches (local and remote).

git branch -a
# or
git branch --all

Compare branches​

Lists the differences between two different branches.

git diff branchname1 branchname2

Create a new branch​

Creates a new branch and switches to it

git checkout -b branchname

Just create a new branch

git branch branchname

Switch to a branch​

Changes to a branch based on name

git checkout branchname

Work on remote branch​

Clones a remote branch locally, and sets it up to track the remote branch

git checkout --track remote-name/branch-name

or equivalently

git checkout -b branch-name remote-name/branch-name

Merge a branch​

To merge a branch into another, you need to do the following

  1. Checkout the branch/master you wish to merge into
  2. Merge the required branch into this one
git checkout branchname
git merge my-new-function

Push local branch to remote​

Creates a new branch locally and then on a remote

git checkout -b branch-name
git push remote-name branch-name

Rebase a branch​

Rebasing is another way to integrate changes from one branch to another. It will move the commits of that branch to a new base commit. To rebase a branch into another, you need to do the following

  1. Checkout to the branch you wish to rebase
  2. Rebase this branch to the required branch.
git checkout new-branch
git rebase master

This will change the base of new-branch to the latest commit in master.

Delete a branch​

Deletes a branch thats no longer required (eg after a merge)

git branch -d branchname

Delete a remote branch​

Deletes a remote branch, e.g a branch in your GitHub repo. Note that you'll still have to delete the local branch using the above snippet, if you want to completely remove the branch.

git push -d remote-name branch-name

Where remote-name(generally 'origin' for GitHub) is the name of the remote where you want to delete the branch from, and branch-name is the branch you wish to delete.