Git Kata 2: Branches
Learn about listing, creating, and working with branches.
We'll cover the following...
Branching is one of the most used and useful features of Git. Commits are always applied to a branch. Creating a new branch in a local repository starts a new commit history, starting from a specific commit in the source branch from which the new branch is created.
Branches are used to isolate work. New work, such as features and hotfixes, are created on a new local branch. These are referred to as feature or topic branches. Branches keep work organized and prevent new work from breaking existing work. Developers can create new local branches at will and commit changes to them. Branches can then be discarded or pushed to a remote server and merged into other branches.
Step 1: Listing and creating branches
The command to list all the branches is given below.
git branch
The output will be something like this:
Command's Parameter
Command / Parameter | Description |
| When executed with no other parameters, this lists all the branches. |
The git branch command lists all the branches in the local repository. Git repositories are initialized with one branch, master (also being referred to as main in this chapter). The current branch is highlighted and prepended with a star.
The command to create a new branch is given below.
git branch newbranch
The result after executing the command will be something like this:
Command's Parameters
Command / Parameter | Description |
| This executes commands related to branches. |
| This is the name of the new branch to create. |