Moving Commits to a New Branch with Git

When working on a project, it’s common to realize that some recent commits should be moved to a new branch. This can happen when you’ve made changes that don’t belong in the current branch or when you want to create a separate feature branch. In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to move recent commits to a new branch using Git.

Understanding Git Branching

Before diving into the process, let’s briefly review how Git branching works. A branch in Git is simply a pointer to a commit. When you create a new branch, you’re creating a new pointer that points to the same commit as the current branch. As you make changes and commit them, the branch pointer moves forward.

Moving Commits to a New Branch

To move recent commits to a new branch, you’ll need to follow these steps:

1. Create a new branch: First, create a new branch that will contain the commits you want to move. You can do this using git branch <new-branch-name>.
2. Reset the current branch: Next, reset the current branch (usually master) to the commit before the ones you want to move. You can use git reset --hard HEAD~<number-of-commits> to achieve this.
3. Checkout the new branch: After resetting the current branch, checkout the new branch using git checkout <new-branch-name>.
4. Verify the commits: Finally, verify that the commits have been moved successfully by checking the commit history using git log.

Example Use Case

Let’s say you’re working on a project and you’ve made three commits (C, D, and E) to the master branch. However, you realize that these commits should be part of a new feature branch. To move these commits to a new branch, you would follow these steps:

# Create a new branch
git branch new-feature

# Reset the master branch to before the commits
git checkout master
git reset --hard HEAD~3

# Checkout the new branch
git checkout new-feature

After completing these steps, the new-feature branch will contain the commits C, D, and E, while the master branch will be reset to before these commits.

Alternative Method Using Cherry-Pick

Another way to move commits to a new branch is by using git cherry-pick. This method involves applying the commits to the new branch individually. Here’s an example:

# Checkout the new branch
git checkout new-feature

# Cherry-pick the commits
git cherry-pick <commit-hash-1>
git cherry-pick <commit-hash-2>
git cherry-pick <commit-hash-3>

Replace <commit-hash-1>, <commit-hash-2>, and <commit-hash-3> with the actual commit hashes you want to move.

Best Practices

When moving commits to a new branch, keep in mind the following best practices:

• Always verify that the commits have been moved successfully by checking the commit history.
• Use git reset --hard with caution, as it will delete any uncommitted changes.
• Consider using git cherry-pick instead of git reset --hard if you need to move a large number of commits.

By following these steps and best practices, you can easily move recent commits to a new branch using Git. This helps keep your project organized and makes it easier to manage different features or tasks.