git_branch {git4r}

Git Branch

Description

Swaps to a different branch if exists, otherwise makes one from most recent commit, and checks out this branch. If no branch name is specified, all branches will be printed.

Usage

git_branch(branchname = NULL)

Arguments

branchname

Branch name to move to or create, use empty string "" to list existing branches. This is asked interactively if left as NULL.

Details

Changing to a branch which is only listed under remote (for example origin/test) by git_branch('test') will automatically create a local copy of this branch.

If there are uncommitted changes, it will forbid changing to an existing branch which would result in irreversible loss of current working directory. If the branch does not exist yet, the working directory is not changed and the next commit will be on this new branch.

You are allowed to change branch to any which share the same latest commit so you can create a branch and instantly remove it, whilst keeping any uncommitted changes. The user is notified that the branch has been changed invisibly (namely with no change to the working directory). This may result in a warning that not all changes have been committed when returning much later to the first branch if some changes are staged,

Currently, this is the only situation you are allowed to delete a branch, because in other situations it would result in irreversibly loss of commits (although git_undo() will still work for a short time to find orphaned commits). For now, housekeeping and deleting branches should be done manually with system git or git2r::branch_delete() if you are really sure.

Value

Invisible NULL

See Also

git_merge