Remembering original branch in git alias

Question

I'd like to create a git alias that does stuff on a different branch than HEAD is on, and then switches back to the original branch. But I'm not sure if there's any way to remember the old branch. I tried using a tag:

git tag placeholder &&
  git co master &&
  git co placeholder &&
  git tag -d placeholder

But this leaves me with a detached HEAD, rather than on the original branch.

Once you delete the placeholder, there is no other reference to the commit other than detached HEAD. maybe you intended on checking out master again? — Abe Petrillo, Feb 02 '15 at 19:21
What do you want to do if you were initially on a "detached HEAD" (at a tag or whatever)? — torek, Feb 02 '15 at 19:39
I'm willing to assume that at the start, HEAD is at the end of a branch. — Simon Lepkin, Feb 03 '15 at 20:26

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 02 '15 at 22:00

2

You could wrap your intended work something like this:

[alias]
        bookmark = "!export OLD_HEAD=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`; git checkout develop; <do stuff>; git checkout $OLD_HEAD"

Essentially this saves the current branch to an environment variable, does the intended work, and checks out the original branch.

answered Feb 02 '15 at 22:00

acanby

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According to the docs, `git rev-parse --abbrev-ref – Simon Lepkin Feb 03 '15 at 20:36
1

HEAD is a reference to a real object. Essentially the command follows the link that HEAD holds and gets the real object, in this case the branch you are on. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2304087/what-is-head-in-git for more info. – acanby Feb 03 '15 at 22:13

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 02 '15 at 19:24

1

You can use git checkout - (that is, just a dash at the end) to go back to the last branch you had checked out (like how cd - works).

answered Feb 02 '15 at 19:24

mipadi

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I had no idea `cd -` was a thing. Learn something new every day. – JacobEvelyn May 01 '15 at 21:04

Remembering original branch in git alias

2 Answers2