#git branches

Ever forget which branch you were working on? Here's a little snippet to list the most recent git branches by commit date.

Add this to your ~/.gitconfig*

[alias] recent-branches = !git for-each-ref --sort='-committerdate' --format='%(committerdate)%09%(objectname:short)%09%(refname)' refs/heads | sed -e 's,refs/heads/,,' | head

Usage:

git recent-branches -n 5 Wed Oct 30 14:59:58 2019 -0700 fd658fd master Wed Oct 30 14:57:05 2019 -0700 8a4c5a4 feature/docker-unit-tests Wed Oct 30 13:19:45 2019 -0700 783ae60 feature/increase-num-threads Tue Oct 29 16:06:40 2019 -0700 ac3c9d2 bugfix/hash-collisions Tue Oct 29 15:33:51 2019 -0700 f2c1ab1 feature/wip

Command line:

Can also just commands on the command line

git for-each-ref --sort='-committerdate' --format='%(committerdate)%09%(objectname:short)%09%(refname)' refs/heads | sed -e 's,refs/heads/,,' | head

In case you're wondering the %09 is a tab character in the git for-each-ref formatting.

References:

https://davidwalsh.name/sort-git-branches

If you merged a git branch into another branch by mistake or added a commit by mistake and you want to get back the brach to its remote state, you can just,

git reset --hard origin/branch-name

This will rebase the current branch you are working on to the latest commit found on the remote branch-name

git branch -d branchname # delete local

Pour supprimer une branche locale :

git branch -d the_local_branch

Pour supprimer une branche distante :

git push origin :the_remote_branch

Si quelqu'un a déjà supprimé la branche distante :

git fetch -p

I always need to clean up old git branches. I thought I would write something to summarize it. 

The first time you push a git branch to a remote, you have to be explicit the first time:

git push origin my-branch-name

Every time after that, a simple git push will work fine. But there’s a ~/.gitconfig setting that will let you just git push without needing that initial explicitness:

[push] # Push current branch even if you've never pushed it before default = current