Branch

In Git, a branch is a sequence of commits that represents the evolution of the project (or a specific feature) over time. There's always at least one branch in a repository, usually called the main branch.

You can create new branches to work on new features or bug fixes and merge them back into the main branch when they're ready. When you create a new branch, it starts from the latest commit on the current branch.

Branches allow you to experiment with new ideas, work on different features in parallel, and isolate changes from the main branch until they're ready to be integrated. While you can work on only one branch at a time, you can switch between different branches as needed.

Branches are lightweight and easy to create or manage in Git. Creating a branch is instantaneous and doesn't require duplicating any files. This makes it easy to create multiple branches for different features or experiments without worrying about storage space or performance.

Cloning or fetching from a remote repository creates read-only copies of the branches in that remote repository. These branches are called remote-tracking branches. These branches are named using the format <remote-name>/<branch-name> (e.g., origin/main). They let you see the state of the branches in the remote repository without affecting your local branches.

Main entry: Remote-tracking branch

Examples

git switch -c new-feature

git switch main

git merge other-feature

git branch -d other-feature

# Currently, on a branch named `feature`:
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/feature
# Shorter version:
git branch -u origin/feature

# Now, you can run `git pull` without specifying
# the remote branch. This will fetch changes
# from `origin/feature` and merge them into
# the `feature` branch:
git pull