Branches
What's a branch?
Branches allow us and others to work on different things, like features, at the same time. Let's find out what branch we're on!
$ git branch
//Output Below
* master
Ah yes! The master branch is the default branch of every repository. Every time we add a commit, we're moving along the master branch.
Psst: as soon as we have additional branches, git branch will display those branches as well.
Creating a branch
We can create branches to work in isolated environments. A new branch is just an offshoot of an existing branch.
Let's create another branch called develop.
$ git branch develop $ git branch
//Output Below
* master develop
Great! Using git branch with a branch name, we can create a new branch, an environment for commits that won't change the master branch.
Psst: the * indicates that we're still on the master branch.
Switching branches
With multiple branches, we can have different versions of fortune_cookie.txt that we can access by moving between branches.
Let's create an alternate_reality branch and switch to it!
$ git branch alternate_reality $ git checkout alternate_reality
//Output Below
Switched to branch 'alternate_reality'
Sweet! Our reliable checkout command can be used with the branch name to switch to another branch.
Committing again
Whenever we commit something, it'll be committed to the currently checked-out branch.
Let's switch back to master and commit to it.
$ cat cookie.txt Chocolate Chip Cookie $ git branch alternate_reality $ git checkout master $ echo Frosted Snowman Cookie > cookie.txt $ git add . $ git commit -m "Modify cookie"
//Output Below
[master a8ed121] Modify cookie 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
Wohoo! We switched to master, so the commit happened in that branch. If we would switch to alternate_reality, so would the commit.
Logging with flags
There's a way to display logs that makes reading them a lot easier.
$ git log --graph
//Output Below
* commit 86b289d | Author: Elliot <elliot@allsafe.com> | Date: Tue Nov 15 11:41 2016 | | Add cake | * commit 52ebf24 Author: Elliot <elliot@allsafe.com> Date: Tue Nov 15 11:36 2016 Add cookie
Way better! With flags like --graph, we can specify what we want Git to do in a more precise way.
Logging with branches
There's also a flag that allows us to view branches and the divergence of commits.
$ git log --graph --all
//Output Below
* commit 86b289d | Author: Elliot <elliot@allsafe.com> | Date: Tue Nov 15 11:41 2016 | | Add cake | | * commit 168291b |/ Author: Elliot <elliot@allsafe.com> | Date: Tue Nov 15 11:38 2016 | | Change cookie | * commit 52ebf24 Author: Elliot <elliot@allsafe.com> Date: Tue Nov 15 11:36 2016 Add cookie
Sweet! When we use the --all flag along with log --graph, we can see all commits from all branches.
Information overflow
When there are tons of commits, however, we might not want to see all of the available information at once.
$ git log --graph --all --oneline
//Output Below
* 86b289d Add cake | * 168291b Change cookie |/ * 52ebf24 Add cookie
Nice! What a beautiful piece of condensed information we have there!
Psst: --oneline is a short version of --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit.
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