Switching Git Branches the Lazy Way

2011-08-23T21:55:00+01:00

Ever been tired of typing git checkout my-awesome-feature? You can set up an alias and an autocompletion, but you will still have to type git co my<TAB> and remember the beginning of the branch name.

At work, we typically use long, descriptive branch names, and I can only remember 1 or 2 words that are in it.

So I've written a little script that finds the correct branch based on the keyword and switches to it. If there's any ambiguity it will ask me, and I will have to enter a number.

#!/usr/bin/ruby # Switch to a git branch by typing only part of the branch name. # If multiple branches found, prompts for a number. # # Type `b dev` instead of `git checkout development` # # See also: # https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash pattern = ARGV[0] all_branches = `git branch`.split(/[\n\r]+/).map{|l|l.gsub(/^\* /,'')}.map(&:strip).reject{|l|l == ''} if pattern matching_branches = all_branches.select{|b| b.include? pattern} else matching_branches = all_branches end if matching_branches.empty? puts "No branch matching #{pattern}" choosable_branches = all_branches else choosable_branches = matching_branches end branch = if choosable_branches.size == 1 choosable_branches.first else puts choosable_branches.each_with_index.map{|b,i| "#{i+1}. #{b}"}.join("\n") print "Enter the branch number > " selected = $stdin.gets.to_i - 1 if selected >= 0 && selected <= choosable_branches.size-1 choosable_branches[selected] end end if branch && branch.strip != '' puts "Checking out #{branch.inspect}" `git checkout #{branch}` end

Levente Bagi

Switching Git Branches the Lazy Way