Git branch management

[Qingquan-Li]

Table of Contents:

1. Use different branch
   1.1 Create and switch branch
   1.2 Delete local branch
   1.3 Delete remote branch
2. Git merge
   2.1 non fast-forward merge
   2.2 fast-forward merge
   2.3 git merge --no-ff vs git-merge
3. Git rebase
4. Remote branch
   4.1 To see tracking branches
   4.2 Track remote branch
   4.3 Checkout a special remote branch
   4.4 Synchronize the local branch (master) with the remote branch

References:

• https://git-scm.com/
• https://learngitbranching.js.org/
• https://www.liaoxuefeng.com/wiki/896043488029600/896954848507552
• https://blog.developer.atlassian.com/pull-request-merge-strategies-the-great-debate/

1. Use different branch

References:
https://medium.com/@patrickporto/4-branching-workflows-for-git-30d0aaee7bf
https://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/
https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/quickstart/github-flow

Two main branches with infinite lifetime:

• master branch contains production code. All development code is merged (via GitHub pull request) into master in sometime.
• develop branch contains pre-production code. When the features are finished then they are merged into develop.

During the development cycle, a variety of supporting branches are used:

• feature-* branches are used to develop new features for the upcoming releases. May branch off from develop and must merge into develop.
• hotfix-* branches are necessary to act immediately upon an undesired status of master. May branch off from master and must merge into master and develop.
• release-* branches support preparation of a new production release. They allow many minor bug to be fixed and preparation of meta-data for a release. May branch off from develop and must merge into master and develop.

1.1 Create and switch branch

git checkout

$ git checkout -b dev
Switched to a new branch 'dev'

the same:

$ git branch dev
$ git checkout dev
Switched to branch 'dev'

$ git branch
* dev
  master

git switch

Git v2.23.0 began to support the $ git switch command.

In Git version 2.23.0, a new command called $ git switch was introduced to eventually replace $ git checkout, which is somewhat overloaded as a command (it does a bunch of separate things).

Reference: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-switch

$ git switch -c dev
Switched to a new branch 'dev'

the same:

$ git branch dev
$ git switch dev
Switched to branch 'dev'

1.2 Delete local branch

References:
https://git-scm.com/docs/git-branch
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Basic-Branching-and-Merging
http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Remote-Branches

-d
--delete
Delete a branch. The branch must be fully merged in its upstream branch, or in HEAD if no upstream was set with --track or --set-upstream-to.
-D
Shortcut for --delete --force.

Example:

Now that your work is merged in, you have no further need for the iss53 branch. You can close the issue in your issue-tracking system, and delete the branch:

$ git branch -d iss53

1.3 Delete remote branch

Suppose you’re done with a remote branch — say you and your collaborators are finished with a feature and have merged it into your remote’s master branch (or whatever branch your stable codeline is in). You can delete a remote branch using the --delete option to git push. If you want to delete your serverfix branch from the server, you run the following:

$ git push origin --delete serverfix
To https://github.com/schacon/simplegit
 - [deleted]         serverfix

Basically all this does is remove the pointer from the server. The Git server will generally keep the data there for a while until a garbage collection runs, so if it was accidentally deleted, it’s often easy to recover.

---

2. Git merge

Combining the work from two different branches together. This will allow us to branch off, develop a new feature, and then combine it back in.

The first method to combine work that we will examine is $ git merge. (The second one is $ git rebase .)
Merging in Git creates a special commit that has two unique parents. A commit with two parents essentially means "I want to include all the work from this parent over here and this one over here, and the set of all their parents."

2.1 non fast-forward merge

(master) $ git merge --no-ff feature

2.2 fast-forward merge

(master) $ git merge feature

2.3 git merge --no-ff vs git-merge

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9069061/what-is-the-difference-between-git-merge-and-git-merge-no-ff

---

3. Git rebase

Rebasing essentially takes a set of commits, "copies" them, and plops them down somewhere else.
The advantage of rebasing is that it can be used to make a nice linear sequence of commits. The commit log / history of the repository will be a lot cleaner if only rebasing is allowed.

Note: The Golden Rule of Rebasing reads: “Never rebase while you’re on a public branch.”
-> Replace with use Pull requests

(feature) $ git rebase master

---

4. Remote branch

References:
https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Remote-Branches
https://git-scm.com/book/zh/v2/Git-分支-远程分支

4.1 To see tracking branches

If you want to see what tracking branches you have set up, you can use the -vv option to git branch.

(dev) $ git branch -vv  # doubly verbose
* dev            aa35743 [origin/dev] Commit message
  master         aa35743 [origin/master] Commit message

It’s important to note that these numbers are only since the last time you fetched from each server. This command does not reach out to the servers, it’s telling you about what it has cached from these servers locally. If you want totally up to date ahead and behind numbers, you’ll need to fetch from all your remotes right before running this. You could do that like this:

$ git fetch --all; git branch -vv

4.2 Track remote branch

References:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18031946/what-does-set-upstream-do
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/520650/make-an-existing-git-branch-track-a-remote-branch

Adding a remote tracking branch means that git then knows what you want to do when you git fetch, git pull or git push in future.
It assumes that you want to keep the local branch and the remote branch it is tracking in sync.

If you are planning on basing your work on an upstream branch that already exists at the remote, run:

(dev) $ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/dev
# Or:
(dev) $ git branch -u origin/dev
# Before Git-1.8.0:
(dev) $ git branch --set-upstream origin/dev

Example:

$ git push origin react-get-api
Enumerating objects: 39, done.
Counting objects: 100% (39/39), done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (34/34), done.
Writing objects: 100% (34/34), 282.29 KiB | 12.27 MiB/s, done.
Total 34 (delta 10), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (10/10), completed with 5 local objects.
remote: 
remote: Create a pull request for 'react-get-api' on GitHub by visiting:
remote:      https://github.com/Qingquan-Li/learnenglish/pull/new/react-get-api
remote: 
To github.com:Qingquan-Li/learnenglish.git
 * [new branch]      react-get-api -> react-get-api
$
$ git branch -vv
  dev           86ecaf1 [origin/dev] Use a new domain: learnenglish.qingquanli.com
  master        d23fb72 [origin/master] Merge pull request #1 from Qingquan-Li/dev
* react-get-api be839f6 Write a simple get-api page
$
$ git branch -u origin/react-get-api
Branch 'react-get-api' set up to track remote branch 'react-get-api' from 'origin'.
$
$ git branch -vv
  dev           86ecaf1 [origin/dev] Use a new domain: learnenglish.qingquanli.com
  master        d23fb72 [origin/master] Merge pull request #1 from Qingquan-Li/dev
* react-get-api be839f6 [origin/react-get-api] Write a simple get-api page

If you are planning to push out a new local branch that will track its remote counterpart, you may want to use git push -u to set the upstream config as you push:

(dev) $ git push -u origin dev

This sets the upstream association for any future git push and git pull attempts automatically.

Example (Assuming that you haven't set-upstream before pushing):

jake@vm-ubuntu:~/react-table-demo$ git push
fatal: The current branch dev has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin dev

jake@vm-ubuntu:~/react-table-demo$ git push --set-upstream origin dev
Enumerating objects: 7, done.
Counting objects: 100% (7/7), done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Writing objects: 100% (4/4), 729 bytes | 729.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 4 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (2/2), completed with 2 local objects.
To github.com:FatliTalk/react-table-demo.git
   28bf37e..785a523  dev -> dev
Branch 'dev' set up to track remote branch 'dev' from 'origin'.

4.3 Checkout a special remote branch

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67699/how-to-clone-all-remote-branches-in-git

$ # After cloning a remote Git repository, there is only the `master` branch in the repository.
$ git branch
* master
$
$ # Using the `-a` flag to check other branches hiding in the repository.
$ git branch -a
* master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/dev
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/pythonanywhere
$
$ # If you want to work on that branch, you'll need to create a local tracking branch:
$ git checkout pythonanywhere
Branch 'pythonanywhere' set up to track remote branch 'pythonanywhere' from 'origin'.
Switched to a new branch 'pythonanywhere'
$
$ git branch
  master
* pythonanywhere

4.4 Synchronize the local branch (master) with the remote branch

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6373277/synchronizing-a-local-git-repository-with-a-remote-one

$ git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.
$
$ git fetch --prune origin
remote: Enumerating objects: 1, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
remote: Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (1/1), 616 bytes | 77.00 KiB/s, done.
From github.com:Qingquan-Li/learnenglish
   e772dca..d23fb72  master     -> origin/master
$
$ git reset --hard origin/master
HEAD is now at d23fb72 Merge pull request #1 from Qingquan-Li/dev
$
$ git clean -f -d