Working with Git Branches

In Git, a branch is a new/separate version of the main repository.

Let's say you have a large project, and you need to update the design on it.

How would that work without and with Git:

Without Git:

• Make copies of all the relevant files to avoid impacting the live version
• Start working with the design and find that code depend on code in other files, that also need to be changed!
• Make copies of the dependant files as well. Making sure that every file dependency references the correct file name
• EMERGENCY! There is an unrelated error somewhere else in the project that needs to be fixed ASAP!
• Save all your files, making a note of the names of the copies you were working on
• Work on the unrelated error and update the code to fix it
• Go back to the design, and finish the work there
• Copy the code or rename the files, so the updated design is on the live version
• (2 weeks later, you realize that the unrelated error was not fixed in the new design version because you copied the files before the fix)

With Git:

• With a new branch called new-design, edit the code directly without impacting the main branch
• EMERGENCY! There is an unrelated error somewhere else in the project that needs to be fixed ASAP!
• Create a new branch from the main project called small-error-fix
• Fix the unrelated error and merge the small-error-fix branch with the main branch
• You go back to the new-design branch, and finish the work there
• Merge the new-design branch with main (getting alerted to the small error fix that you were missing)

Branches allow you to work on different parts of a project without impacting the main branch.

When the work is complete, a branch can be merged with the main project.

You can even switch between branches and work on different projects without them interfering with each other.

Branching in Git is very lightweight and fast!

New Git Branch

Let add some new features to our index.html page.

We are working in our local repository, and we do not want to disturb or possibly wreck the main project.

So we create a new branch:

git branch hello-world-images

Now we created a new branch called "hello-world-images"

Let's confirm that we have created a new branch:

git branch
  hello-world-images
* master

We can see the new branch with the name "hello-world-images", but the * beside master specifies that we are currently on that branch.

checkout is the command used to check out a branch. Moving us from the current branch, to the one specified at the end of the command:

git checkout hello-world-images
Switched to branch 'hello-world-images'

Now we have moved our current workspace from the master branch, to the new branch

Open your favourite editor and make some changes.

For this example, we added an image (img_hello_world.jpg) to the working folder and a line of code in the index.html file:

We have made changes to a file and added a new file in the working directory (same directory as the main branch).

Now check the status of the current branch:

git status
On branch hello-world-images
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add ..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore ..." to discard changes in working directory)
        modified:   index.html

Untracked files:
  (use "git add ..." to include in what will be committed)
        img_hello_world.jpg

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

So let's go through what happens here:

• There are changes to our index.html, but the file is not staged for commit
• img_hello_world.jpg is not tracked

So we need to add both files to the Staging Environment for this branch:

git add --all

Using --all instead of individual filenames will Stage all changed (new, modified, and deleted) files.

Check the status of the branch:

git status
On branch hello-world-images
Changes to be committed:
  (use "git restore --staged ..." to unstage)
    new file: img_hello_world.jpg
    modified: index.html

We are happy with our changes. So we will commit them to the branch:

git commit -m "Added image to Hello World"
[hello-world-images 0312c55] Added image to Hello World
2 files changed, 1 insertion(+)
create mode 100644 img_hello_world.jpg

Now we have a new branch, that is different from the master branch.

Switching Between Branches

Now let's see just how quick and easy it is to work with different branches, and how well it works.

We are currently on the branch hello-world-images. We added an image to this branch, so let's list the files in the current directory:

ls
README.md  bluestyle.css  img_hello_world.jpg  index.html

We can see the new file img_hello_world.jpg, and if we open the html file, we can see the code has been altered. All is as it should be.

Now, let's see what happens when we change branch to master

git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'

The new image is not a part of this branch. List the files in the current directory again:

ls
README.md  bluestyle.css  index.html

img_hello_world.jpg is no longer there! And if we open the html file, we can see the code reverted to what it was before the alteration.

See how easy it is to work with branches? And how this allows you to work on different things?

Emergency Branch

Now imagine that we are not yet done with hello-world-images, but we need to fix an error on master.

I don't want to mess with master directly, and I do not want to mess with hello-world-images, since it is not done yet.

So we create a new branch to deal with the emergency:

git checkout -b emergency-fix
Switched to a new branch 'emergency-fix'

Now we have created a new branch from master, and changed to it. We can safely fix the error without disturbing the other branches.

Let's fix our imaginary error:

We have made changes in this file, and we need to get those changes to the master branch.

Check the status:

git status
On branch emergency-fix
Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add ..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore ..." to discard changes in working directory)
        modified:   index.html

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

stage the file, and commit:

git add index.html
git commit -m "updated index.html with emergency fix"
[emergency-fix dfa79db] updated index.html with emergency fix
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Now we have a fix ready for master, and we need to merge the two branches.