git checkout commit id is changing branch to no branch

Question

I am working on a branch in git  When I do  git checkout  lt commit id gt     commit id obtained from git log    it is getting committed to that particular change but branch is changed to  lt No-branch gt    Why is this happening  How do you resolve this

User · Answer

Is that commit in the other branch  Git checkout  lt commitid gt  will just switch over to the other branch if the commit has happened in the other branch  You will want to merge the changes to your first branch if you want the code there

User · Answer

Other answers have explained what  detached HEAD  means  I try to answer why I want to do that  There are some cases I prefer checkout a commit than checkout a temporary branch    To compile build at some specific commit  maybe for your daily build or just to release some specific version to test team   I used to checkout a tmp branch for that  but then I need to remember to delete the tmp branch after build  So I found checkout a commit is more convenient  after the build I just checkout to the original branch  To check what codes look like at that commit  maybe to debug an issue  The case is not much different from my case  1  I can also checkout a tmp branch for that but then I need to remember delete it  So I choose to checkout a commit more often  This is probably just me being paranoid  so I prepare to merge another branch but I already suspect I would get some merge conflict and I want to see them first before merge  So I checkout the head commit then do the merge  see the merge result  Then I git checkout -f to switch back to my branch  using -f to discard any merge conflict  Again I found it more convenient than checkout a tmp branch

User · Answer

This worked best for me when I wanted to check out the code  given the commit ID  lt commit id SHA1 gt  git fetch origin  lt commit id SHA1 gt  git checkout -b new branch FETCH HEAD

User · Answer

By checking out to one of the commits in the history you are moving your git into so called  detached state   which looks like is not what you want  Use this single command to create a new branch on one of the commits from the history   git checkout -b  lt new branch name gt   lt SHA1 gt

User · Answer

If you are branch master and you do a git checkout  lt SHA gt   I m fairly certain that this causes git to load that commit in a detached state  changing you out of the current branch   If you want to make changes you can and then you can do a git checkout -b  lt mynewbranch gt  to create a new branch based off that commit and any changes you have made

User · Answer

If you checkout a commit sha directly  it puts you into a  detached head  state  which basically just means that the current sha that your working copy has checked out  doesn t have a branch pointing at it   If you haven t made any commits yet  you can leave detached head state by simply checking out whichever branch you were on before checking out the commit sha   git checkout  lt branch gt    If you did make commits while you were in the detached head state  you can save your work by simply attaching a branch before or while you leave detached head state     Checkout a new branch at current detached head state  git checkout -b newBranch   You can read more about detached head state at the official Linux Kernel Git docs for checkout

[git] "git checkout <commit id>" is changing branch to "no branch"

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