moving changed files to another branch for check-in

Question

This often happens to me  I write some code  go to check in my changes  and then realize I m not in the proper branch to check in those changes  However I can t switch to another branch without my changes reverting  Is there a way to move changes to another branch to be checked in there

User · Answer

If you haven t already committed your changes  just use git checkout to move to the new branch and then commit them normally - changes to files are not tied to a particular branch until you commit them   If you have already committed your changes    Type git log and remember the SHA of the commit you want to move  Check out the branch you want to move the commit to  Type git cherry-pick SHA substituting the SHA from above  Switch back to your original branch  Use git reset HEAD 1 to reset back before your wrong-branch commit    cherry-pick takes a given commit and applies it to the currently checked-out head  thus allowing you to copy the commit over to a new branch

User · Answer

A soft git reset will put committed changes back into your index  Next  checkout the branch you had intended to commit on  Then git commit with a new commit message    git reset --soft  lt commit gt  git checkout  lt branch gt  git commit -m  Commit message goes here    From git docs      git reset   lt mode gt     lt commit gt   This form resets the current branch head   to  and possibly updates the index  resetting it to the tree   of   and the working tree depending on   If  is   omitted  defaults to --mixed  The  must be one of the following       --soft Does not touch the index file or the working tree at all  but resets the head to   just like all modes do   This leaves all   your changed files  Changes to be committed   as git status would put   it

User · Answer

Sadly this happens to me quite regularly as well and I use git stash if I realized my mistake before git commit and use git cherry-pick otherwise  both commands are explained pretty well in other answers  I want to add a clarification for git checkout targetBranch  this command will only preserve your working directory and staged snapshot if targetBranch has the same history as your current branch     If you haven t already committed your changes  just use git checkout   to move to the new branch and then commit them normally    Amber s statement is not false  when you move to a newBranch git checkout -b newBranch  a new pointer is created and it is pointing to the exact same commit as your current branch  In fact  if you happened to have an another branch that shares history with your current branch  both point at the same commit  you can  move your changes  by git checkout targetBranch  However  usually different branches means different history  and Git will not allow you to switch between these branches with a dirty working directory or staging area  in which case you can either do git checkout -f targetBranch  clean and throwaway changes  or git stage   git checkout targetBranch  clean and save changes   simply running git checkout targetBranch will give an error      error  Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten   by checkout                  Please commit your changes or stash them before you switch branches  Aborting

User · Answer

git stash is your friend   If you have not made the commit yet  just run git stash  This will save away all of your changes   Switch to the branch you want the changes on and run git stash pop   There are lots of uses for git stash  This is certainly one of the more useful reasons   An example     work on some code git stash git checkout correct-branch git stash pop

[git] moving changed files to another branch for check-in

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