git-switch

GIT-SWITCH(1)                     Git Manual                     GIT-SWITCH(1)

NAME
       git-switch - Switch branches

SYNOPSIS
       git switch [<options>] [--no-guess] <branch>
       git switch [<options>] --detach [<start-point>]
       git switch [<options>] (-c|-C) <new-branch> [<start-point>]
       git switch [<options>] --orphan <new-branch>

DESCRIPTION
       Switch to a specified branch. The working tree and the index are
       updated to match the branch. All new commits will be added to the tip
       of this branch.

       Optionally a new branch could be created with either -c, -C,
       automatically from a remote branch of same name (see --guess), or
       detach the working tree from any branch with --detach, along with
       switching.

       Switching branches does not require a clean index and working tree
       (i.e. no differences compared to HEAD). The operation is aborted
       however if the operation leads to loss of local changes, unless told
       otherwise with --discard-changes or --merge.

       THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. THE BEHAVIOR MAY CHANGE.

OPTIONS
       <branch>
           Branch to switch to.

       <new-branch>
           Name for the new branch.

       <start-point>
           The starting point for the new branch. Specifying a <start-point>
           allows you to create a branch based on some other point in history
           than where HEAD currently points. (Or, in the case of --detach,
           allows you to inspect and detach from some other point.)

           You can use the @{-N} syntax to refer to the N-th last
           branch/commit switched to using "git switch" or "git checkout"
           operation. You may also specify - which is synonymous to @{-1}.
           This is often used to switch quickly between two branches, or to
           undo a branch switch by mistake.

           As a special case, you may use A...B as a shortcut for the merge
           base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave
           out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.

       -c <new-branch>, --create <new-branch>
           Create a new branch named <new-branch> starting at <start-point>
           before switching to the branch. This is a convenient shortcut for:

               $ git branch <new-branch>
               $ git switch <new-branch>

       -C <new-branch>, --force-create <new-branch>
           Similar to --create except that if <new-branch> already exists, it
           will be reset to <start-point>. This is a convenient shortcut for:

               $ git branch -f <new-branch>
               $ git switch <new-branch>

       -d, --detach
           Switch to a commit for inspection and discardable experiments. See
           the "DETACHED HEAD" section in git-checkout(1) for details.

       --guess, --no-guess
           If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in
           exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name, treat
           as equivalent to

               $ git switch -c <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>

           If the branch exists in multiple remotes and one of them is named
           by the checkout.defaultRemote configuration variable, we'll use
           that one for the purposes of disambiguation, even if the <branch>
           isn't unique across all remotes. Set it to e.g.
           checkout.defaultRemote=origin to always checkout remote branches
           from there if <branch> is ambiguous but exists on the origin
           remote. See also checkout.defaultRemote in git-config(1).

           --guess is the default behavior. Use --no-guess to disable it.

       -f, --force
           An alias for --discard-changes.

       --discard-changes
           Proceed even if the index or the working tree differs from HEAD.
           Both the index and working tree are restored to match the switching
           target. If --recurse-submodules is specified, submodule content is
           also restored to match the switching target. This is used to throw
           away local changes.

       -m, --merge
           If you have local modifications to one or more files that are
           different between the current branch and the branch to which you
           are switching, the command refuses to switch branches in order to
           preserve your modifications in context. However, with this option,
           a three-way merge between the current branch, your working tree
           contents, and the new branch is done, and you will be on the new
           branch.

           When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting
           paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts and
           mark the resolved paths with git add (or git rm if the merge should
           result in deletion of the path).

       --conflict=<style>
           The same as --merge option above, but changes the way the
           conflicting hunks are presented, overriding the merge.conflictStyle
           configuration variable. Possible values are "merge" (default) and
           "diff3" (in addition to what is shown by "merge" style, shows the
           original contents).

       -q, --quiet
           Quiet, suppress feedback messages.

       --progress, --no-progress
           Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
           when it is attached to a terminal, unless --quiet is specified.
           This flag enables progress reporting even if not attached to a
           terminal, regardless of --quiet.

       -t, --track
           When creating a new branch, set up "upstream" configuration.  -c is
           implied. See --track in git-branch(1) for details.

           If no -c option is given, the name of the new branch will be
           derived from the remote-tracking branch, by looking at the local
           part of the refspec configured for the corresponding remote, and
           then stripping the initial part up to the "*". This would tell us
           to use hack as the local branch when branching off of origin/hack
           (or remotes/origin/hack, or even refs/remotes/origin/hack). If the
           given name has no slash, or the above guessing results in an empty
           name, the guessing is aborted. You can explicitly give a name with
           -c in such a case.

       --no-track
           Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the
           branch.autoSetupMerge configuration variable is true.

       --orphan <new-branch>
           Create a new orphan branch, named <new-branch>. All tracked files
           are removed.

       --ignore-other-worktrees
           git switch refuses when the wanted ref is already checked out by
           another worktree. This option makes it check the ref out anyway. In
           other words, the ref can be held by more than one worktree.

       --recurse-submodules, --no-recurse-submodules
           Using --recurse-submodules will update the content of all
           initialized submodules according to the commit recorded in the
           superproject. If nothing (or --no-recurse-submodules) is used, the
           work trees of submodules will not be updated. Just like git-
           submodule(1), this will detach HEAD of the submodules.

EXAMPLES
       The following command switches to the "master" branch:

           $ git switch master

       After working in the wrong branch, switching to the correct branch
       would be done using:

           $ git switch mytopic

       However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may differ in
       files that you have modified locally, in which case the above switch
       would fail like this:

           $ git switch mytopic
           error: You have local changes to 'frotz'; not switching branches.

       You can give the -m flag to the command, which would try a three-way
       merge:

           $ git switch -m mytopic
           Auto-merging frotz

       After this three-way merge, the local modifications are not registered
       in your index file, so git diff would show you what changes you made
       since the tip of the new branch.

       To switch back to the previous branch before we switched to mytopic
       (i.e. "master" branch):

           $ git switch -

       You can grow a new branch from any commit. For example, switch to
       "HEAD~3" and create branch "fixup":

           $ git switch -c fixup HEAD~3
           Switched to a new branch 'fixup'

       If you want to start a new branch from a remote branch of the same
       name:

           $ git switch new-topic
           Branch 'new-topic' set up to track remote branch 'new-topic' from 'origin'
           Switched to a new branch 'new-topic'

       To check out commit HEAD~3 for temporary inspection or experiment
       without creating a new branch:

           $ git switch --detach HEAD~3
           HEAD is now at 9fc9555312 Merge branch 'cc/shared-index-permbits'

       If it turns out whatever you have done is worth keeping, you can always
       create a new name for it (without switching away):

           $ git switch -c good-surprises

SEE ALSO
       git-checkout(1), git-branch(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                     GIT-SWITCH(1)