Using git stash to cache your pending changes

This is just a quick tip which i stumbled upon this weekend. Let’s say you are working on a git branch with a unfinished amount of changes. Now you want to switch branches i.e. to lookup some older/newer value, but you do not want to commit your unfinished piece of work. The solution? git stash.

git stash

Let’s say your Project changes look like this atm:

$ git status # On branch master # Changes to be committed: # (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage) # # modified: index.html # # Changed but not updated: # (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed) # # modified: lib/simplegit.py #

The Usage is pretty simple just type use git stash:

$ git stash Saved working directory and index state \ "WIP on master: 049d078 added the index file" HEAD is now at 049d078 added the index file (To restore them type "git stash apply")

And your working directory is clean (last commit):

Be aware that git stash also saved the unstaged changes so far. Now you can switch branches and do your stuff…

If you want to reapply your stash just type: git stash apply By default that would ignore the staging you’ve done so far, so to also restage your changeset use git stash apply --index If you have multiple stashes git stash apply will always pick the latest.

$ git stash apply --index # On branch master # Changes to be committed: # (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage) # # modified: index.html # # Changed but not updated: # (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed) # # modified: lib/simplegit.py #

You can also have multiple stashes and unapply some subset of them. But that goes beyond that blog post. If you want to learn more just read the wonderful ProGit Book by Scott Chacon.

Benedikt Wolters

the missing T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

Using Git Stash to Cache Your Pending Changes

git stash

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