Assume you are on a Branch and there is a need to switch to another branch. Why would you need to move to another branch? Here are some reasons:

There is a Development Env bug that you need to quickly look at.
A Production hotfix should go right away.
Or a urgent code review where you need to pull & switch to another branch
Or just someone asked you to check something on a different branch

You can do this in a couple of ways

Commit your changes. (May take more time)
Git Stash.

Git Stash

Git stash is a useful Git command that temporarily stashes changes you've made to your working directory so you can work on something else. Later you can come back and re-apply your stashed changes.

Here are some common commands and usages for git stash

Stashing Changes
- git stash: Stash the changes in your working directory. This command temporarily stores all modified tracked files.
- git stash save [message]: Same as git stash, but allows you to add a descriptive message to the stash for easy identification.
Listing All Stashes
- git stash list: Lists all stashed changes. Stashes are stored in a stack and can be listed to see all.
Viewing Stash Contents
- git stash show: Shows the changes recorded previously in the stash as a diff between the stashed changes & the original state.
- git stash show stash@{n}: Show the changes in the specified stash.
Applying Stashed Changes
- git stash apply: Re-apply the changes stored in the latest stash.
- git stash apply stash@{n}: Apply the changes from the specified stash.
Removing a Stash
- git stash drop stash@{n}: Remove a single stash entry from the list of stashes.
- git stash clear: Remove all the stashed entries.

Here is how to make it work (For learning, please play with a temporary repository):

You are on some branch and you have some changes done but not committed and now you need to switch to another branch:

git status // To see what all you are working on.
git stash // Save your current changes into the stash.
git switch ... // to another branch and complete your work.
git stash list // To see what stashed I've.
git stash apply // To apply the latest stashed code.

Let's Connect

Hi, I’m Sandeep Gokhale, and I'm passionate about building high-performing teams at my company, Techvito and I write about Technology, People, Processes and some more fun stuff.

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