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I created a local branch using git checkout -b <feature-branch-name> and made changes in it.

I neither committed anything or stashed. I then checkout master branch using git checkout master. Did a git pull. Later when I checkout my feature branch using git checkout <feature-branch-name>, I don't my changes anymore.

What should I do?

Shubham Goel
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  • "created a local branch ... and made changes in it. I neither committed anything or stashed" Then you _didn't_ "make changes in it". Git is about commits. If you didn't commit to this branch, then you did not affect the branch at all, and whatever you may have done while "on" this branch is now probably lost. But see the answers on the linked duplicate; there might be something useful there. "What should I do?" Learn some key basics of Git before using it? – matt Jun 30 '22 at 12:44
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    Thanks for suggestions! I use IDE IntelliJ, it has a feature to see local history and there I could find all my changes. – Shubham Goel Jul 01 '22 at 09:26

1 Answers1

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I neither committed anything or stashed.

These changes are not in Git. Your entire working tree is not in Git. It was initially created by Git—Git put the initial set of files into it—but as you do work in your working tree, any updates you make to these files are unknown to Git.

You must git add and git commit, or at the least use git stash or something similar, to make Git see and save the updated files. Until then, none of your changes are anywhere in Git. If they're truly gone, Git cannot help you recover them, because they never were in Git in the first place. However:

I then checkout master branch using git checkout master

This should either fail (telling you that it can't do that), or else preserve your changes. For the gory details about when, how, and why Git sometimes succeeds here (preserving your changed files), see Checkout another branch when there are uncommitted changes on the current branch.1

Did a git pull.

In modern Git, this should generally fail unless you've:

  • chosen git pull --rebase as your default, i.e., set up git pull to run git fetch and then git rebase instead of git fetch and then git merge, and
  • set up git rebase to use "autostash" mode.

If you did this, you may have a stash made (automatically!) before the git pull --rebase. If the stash did not apply cleanly, or the rebase stopped in the middle, you may still have this stash. Check to see if you're still in the middle of an unfinished rebase!

Later when I checkout my feature branch using git checkout <feature-branch-name>, I don't my changes anymore.

If you're still in the middle of an unfinished rebase, you'll need to terminate the unfinished rebase. Be aware that some versions of Git have some bugs with the autostash code such that the stash commit will still exist but you may have trouble finding it. For anyone to say anything further, you'll have to specify your precise Git version.

(I avoid the autostash feature as I don't like git stash at all. This saved me from ever encountering these bugs myself.)

1Note that except for the special case of creating a new branch (git checkout -b newbranch or git switch -c newbranch), I generally don't recommend doing this.

If you have a case of "I meant to commit these to otherbranch, let me try git switch otherbranch now to see if I can do that for free", that's also OK: if the git switch or git checkout works, you can now safely git add and git commit on the other branch.

If you can't git switch otherbranch, I generally would recommend creating a new branch then and there, and committing on the new branch. You can then cherry-pick that commit to wherever you intended to work, and once you're all set, just delete the new temporary branch you made. But some people do like git stash for this, and git stash is faster than create-branch, cherry-pick, delete-branch.

torek
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