Git Not currently on any branch Is there an easy way to get back on a branch while keeping the changes

Question

So I ve done some work in the repository and when I m about to commit I realize that I m not currently on any branch   This happens a lot when working with submodules and I am able to solve it  but the process is tedious and I ve been thinking that there must be an easier way to do this    Is there an easy way to get back on a branch  while keeping the changes

User · Answer

One way to end up in this situation is after doing a rebase from a remote branch. In this case, the new commits are pointed to by HEAD but master does not point to them -- it's pointing to wherever it was before you rebased the other branch.

You can make this commit your new master by doing:

git branch -f master HEAD
git checkout master

This forcibly updates master to point to HEAD (without putting you on master) then switches to master.

User · Answer

git checkout master   That s result something like this   Warning  you are leaving 2 commits behind  not connected to any of your branches   1e7822f readme 0116b5b returned to clean django  If you want to keep them by creating a new branch  this may be a good time to do so with  git branch new branch name 1e7822f25e376d6a1182bb86a0adf3a774920e1e   So  let s do it   git merge 1e7822f25e376d6a1182bb86a0adf3a774920e1e

User · Answer

I recently ran into this problem again  It s been a while since I last worked with submodules and having learned more about git I realized that simply checking out the branch you want to commit on is sufficient  Git will keep the working tree even if you don t stash it   git checkout existing branch name   If you want to work on a new branch this should work for you   git checkout -b new branch name   The checkout will fail if you have conflicts in the working tree  but that should be quite unusual and if it happens you can just stash it  pop it and resolve the conflict   Compared to the accepted answer  this answer will save you the execution of two commands  that don t really take that long to execute anyway  Therefore I will not accept this answer  unless it miraculously gets more upvotes  or at least close  than the currently accepted answer

User · Answer

Leaving another way here  git branch newbranch git checkout master  git merge newbranch

User · Answer

I know I told babay in 2012 that I thought it was unlikely that someone wouldn t realize that they weren t on a branch and commit  This just happened to me  so I guess I have to admit that I was wrong  but considering that it took until 2016 for this to happen to me  you could argue that it is in fact unlikely   Anyway  creating a new branch is overkill in my opinion  All you have to do is   git checkout some-branch git merge commit-sha   If you didn t copy the commit-sha before checking out the other branch  you can easily find it by running   git reflog

User · Answer

The following method may work   git rebase HEAD master git checkout master   This will rebase your current HEAD changes on top of the master  Then you can switch the branch     Alternative way is to checkout the branch first   git checkout master   Then Git should display SHA1 of your detached commits  then you can cherry pick them  e g   git cherry-pick YOURSHA1   Or you can also merge the latest one   git merge YOURSHA1     To see all of your commits from different branches  to make sure you ve them   run  git reflog

User · Answer

If you have not committed   git stash git checkout some-branch git stash pop   If you have committed and have not changed anything since   git log --oneline -n1   this will give you the SHA git checkout some-branch git merge   commit-sha    If you have committed and then done extra work   git stash git log --oneline -n1   this will give you the SHA git checkout some-branch git merge   commit-sha  git stash pop

User · Answer

this helped me  git checkout -b newbranch git checkout master git merge newbranch git branch -d newbranch

User · Answer

Alternatively  you could setup your submodules so that rather than being in their default detached head state you check out a branch   Edited to add   One way is to checkout a particular branch of the submodule when you add it with the -b flag   git submodule add -b master  lt remote-repo gt   lt path-to-add-it-to gt    Another way is to just go into the submodule directory and just check it out  git checkout master

[git] Git: "Not currently on any branch." Is there an easy way to get back on a branch, while keeping the changes?

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