Branches

Branches are the core essence of git. A branch can be a bug fix, a new feature or a separate environment and can be created via a base branch or a base commit. Here's how to create branches

$ git checkout origin/master -b my-topic-branch # creates a branch

$ git branch # lists the branches
  master
* my-topic-branch

We can switch branches by checking them out and we can also manipulate them as follows:

$ git branch -m my-new-branch-name # renames the branch
$ git branch -D my-old-branch # deletes the "my-old-branch"

Branches can be merged to one another simply by running:

$ git branch # list our branches
  master
* my-topic-branch

$ git checkout master # checkout the master branch
$ git merge my-topic-branch # merge the "my-topic-branch" to master
$ git push origin master # push to remote repository

We don't always have to merge locally, we can submit and create pull requests directly on GitHub and merge, create discussions around them and then be merged by repository collaborators.

Pro-tip: IF by any chance you've got a change set which is not included in the main branch, you can use chery-pick to add the specific commit. Example:

$ git branch
 * accidental-branch-i-commited-to
   correct-branch
   master
$ git checkout correct-branch
$ git show accidental-branch-i-commited-to
... abcdef123123435abcdfg # get the commit sha
$ git cherry-pick abcdef123123435abcdfg

Written on March 7, 2015