branching

A branch in Git is simply a lightweight movable pointer to one of these commits. The default branch name in Git is master

Listing Branches

List the local branch

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(master)$ git branch
* master

List the remote branch

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(master)$ git branch -r
  origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  origin/master

The above command lists remote branches and shows HEAD is pointing to remote master

Creating a Branch

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(master)$ git checkout -b bug-fix
Switched to a new branch 'bug-fix'

The above command creates are new branch named bug-fix and update the working copy with new branch. Note this branch is created from master

Know the branch on which you are working

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(bug-fix)$ git status
On branch bug-fix
nothing to commit, working directory clean

Add and commit a file to branch

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(bug-fix)$ echo "Hello" >> fix.txt            
vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(bug-fix)$ git add fix.txt                    
vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(bug-fix)$ git commit -m "added fix file"     
[bug-fix a8d0a15] added fix file                                       
 create mode 100644 fix.txt

Push a branch to remote repository

Push the local branch bug-fix remote repository git-demo which is present on the git hub server

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(bug-fix)$  git push --set-upstream origin bug-fix
Username for 'https://github.com': padmacho
Password for 'https://padmacho@github.com':
Counting objects: 2, done.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (2/2), 266 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 2 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To https://github.com/padmacho/git-demo.git
 * [new branch]      bug-fix -> bug-fix
Branch bug-fix set up to track remote branch bug-fix from origin.

origin points to remote repository . --set-upstream helps to push to remote branch

Switch Branch

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(enhancement-1)$ git checkout bug-fix-1
Switched to branch 'bug-fix-1'

The above command will switch to branch bug-fix-1 from the current working branch enhancement-1

Renaming a branch

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(bug-fix)$ git branch -m bug-fix bug1
vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(bug1)$

Deleting a branch

vagrant@git-m1:~/git-demo(master)$ git branch -d bug1
warning: deleting branch 'bug1' that has been merged to
         'refs/remotes/origin/bug-fix', but not yet merged to HEAD.
Deleted branch bug1 (was a8d0a15).

Note: Git complains that you are deleting a branch that was not merged,You cannot delete a branch on which you are currently working on.

Branching