Branching in Git

Arjit Sharma
01 Min
Development-Plus

Branching allows developers to work on new features or fixes without affecting the main branch.

// Setting up a project
mkdir project
cd project
git init
echo newfile > file
git add file
git commit -m "new file added"
git log

Creating a new branch

git branch newfeature
git status
git branch # To view all branches

Switching branches

git checkout newfeature

Visualizing Branches & Commits

git log --decorate --graph --oneline --all

Note - The HEAD is where Git is pointed at right now in your repository, and the branch is where that branch reference is pointed to.

Detached Head

Reference - https://youtu.be/GN36mrrM12k?si=4zgxsh094rcw6wfF

Normally, HEAD points to a branch but it can also point to a specific commit, making it “detached”

Lets take a example -

Untitled

Untitled

git checkout d6afca4 # HEAD being detached

Make changes to a file and commit it

git add .
git commit -m "Changes made on Detached Head"

Check the Changes

git log --graph --oneline --all

Untitled

Untitled

We can go back to master leaving this commits not connected to a branch behind and they may get deleted

git checkout master

Deleting a branch

git branch -d newfeature  # Only deletes if merged
git branch -D newfeature  # Force delete (even if unmerged)

git push origin --delete newfeature # Deleting a remote branch

Tags

They point to particular commits and just used as fixed labels on commits.

git tag v1 # Tags current commit as v1