Change git branch in terminal without changing in eclipse and vice versa

Question

How can we change switch branches on a terminal without switching the same on an IDE (say eclipse in my case)

I have a branch b1 which is currently on terminal. Open eclipse and see the same branch of code.

After a particular point, if I change the branch in terminal, say checkout b2, even eclipse is getting changed to b2 which should not be the case.

If the terminal and the IDE refer to the same work tree, it's almost impossible. But as I know, after you checkout branch2, the IDE is expected to prompt a dialogue to ask if you want to update the files. You could press No to keep its original contents. — ElpieKay, Jun 12 '16 at 06:12
As ElpieKay pointed out, it's almost impossible, since a git branch checkout changes the files in your directory. Since Eclipse sees those sames files, it will try to update them, or if you don't, I guess you'll end up with lots of swap files that you'll have to find a way to organize. Maybe keep two git directories, of the same repository though, and be mindful about committing, pushing and pulling in both? — curious_weather, Jun 12 '16 at 06:19

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

One possible workaround (especially if your .project is not versioned) is to:

have multiple working tree (one for b1, one for b2 in their own respective folders)
It is possible since git 2.5 and the git worktree add command;
have a .project with different name in them like project_b1 and project_b2.

That way, you can actually import project_b1 and project_b2 in the Eclipse workspace, and you can work/compile concurrently on both projects.

1 Answers1