this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Git tip: switch to previous branch (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by canpolat@programming.dev to c/git@programming.dev
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You can use git switch - to switch to the previous branch. In the following example, we see switching back and forth between branches main and my_dev_branch:

C:\git\my-repo [my_dev_branch]> git switch -
Switched to branch 'main'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.
C:\git\my-repo [main ≡]> git switch -
Switched to branch 'my_dev_branch'
C:\git\my-repo [my_dev_branch]>

Edit: Old habits die hard. Updated to use switch instead of checkout since switch has a clearer responsibility. Obviously they work exactly the same for this scenario.

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[–] vampatori@feddit.uk 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Which follows the similar functionality used by the cd - command to switch to the previous directory you were in. Very handy!

[–] invicticide@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You can do what 👀

[–] vampatori@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

There's more! Well, it's more a bash thing than a cd thing.. in bash the variable $_ refers to the last argument to the previous command. So you can do the following:

> mkdir -p my/nested/dir
> cd $_
> pwd
/home/user/my/nested/dir

It's handy for a whole host of things, like piping/touching then opening a file, chown then chmod, etc.

[–] zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On many terminal emulators you can also use Alt-. to search through your history of previous arguments, so mkdir foo followed by cd [Alt-.] will populate your command line with cd foo for example. If you have some other command in between you can just hit Alt-. repeatedly

[–] rewire@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Or ESC followed by "." Repeating it works too.

[–] navigatron 2 points 1 year ago

You are an absolute king. Never again will I cp a file to a far off land, and then retype the entire path a second time to open it. Thank you!

[–] static_motion@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

That's incredible, I never knew that. Thank you!

[–] invicticide@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

This is amazing ♥️

[–] zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

There's also pushd and popd so that you can pushd into one directory, move around as much as you want and then go back to before the pushd with popd

[–] fades 3 points 1 year ago

… how have I not ever come across that before?!

This thread has been invaluable for me lol

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Use switch, boomer!

[–] canpolat@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Old habits die hard. Thanks for pointing this out. I updated the post.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Oh lol, I was just trying to poke fun, sorry if it came across as accusatory. 😎👍

[–] Nibbler@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

NEVER!!

[–] Hexarei@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's the difference? Genuine question

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Checkout was one of those commands that I joking would call Turing complete because of how much you can do with it (I haven't actually tried to see if it is, but am fully prepared for someone to be nerd sniped and tell me it actually is). I think they're mostly the same, but switch and restore were added as more straightforward versions of checkout and reset.

[–] erlingur@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

Great tip!! Thanks!

[–] mertssmnoglu@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

That's so cool, this can be my favorite command so on. Switching between two branches is easy with that.

[–] jnareb@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Note that git checkout - / git switch - examine reflog to find previous branch. Which means if you renamed the branch, at least current version of Git would be unable to run git switch -.

[–] firelizzard@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

But evidently git rev-parse - will not print out the previous branch 😔 that would have been useful for scripts

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