Git branches

This is most certainly one of the most powerful features in git compared to tradition CVS/SVN systems.

1. you can branch locally, without affecting the remote directory - that's very cool
2. as we will see in later posts you can either merge or rebase your branch to the trunk (this defines the way your branch will get committed remotely: if you merge, you see the branch as a separate "path" in your remote repository, if you rebase, you can make sure your commit ends up looking like part of the trunk "path") - again very cool

So, here are the basics, use:

git branch

to view all current branches, the star indicates which branch you are currently working in

git branch BRANCH_NAME

to create a new branch

git checkout BRANCH_NAME

to start working in that branch

git checkout master

to revert to the master (main) branch

git merge BRANCH_NAME

to merge BRANCH_NAME into another branch (for instance master)

git rebase BRANCH_NAME

to rebase BRANCH_NAME into another branch (for instance master)

git branch -d BRANCH_NAME

to delete a given branch

git branch -D BRANCH_NAME

to force delete a branch

git checkout BRANCH_NAME

to checkout a branch and start (or continue) working on it
More information about the difference between merge and commit coming soon.
Thoughts?