I have a local and a remote Git repository.
In my local repository I create and switch to a new branch: git checkout -b feature/niceNewFeature
I do my coding, git add ., git commit and git push my feature/niceNewFeature branch to the remote repository (e.g. GitHub).
After this I create a GitHub Pull Request to merge feature/niceNewFeature branch into master - after the code is reviewed, I will do so.
Since feature/niceNewFeature is now merged to master, I will delete it on GitHub.
However, in my local repository, feature/niceNewFeature branch is still listed if I execute git branch command.
How do I remove feature/niceNewFeature branch from my local repository, since it is already merged to master and deleted from the remote repository?
git fetch --prune
git branch -lvv | cut -c3- | awk '/: gone]/ {print $1}' | xargs git branch -d
Firstly, remove any remote-tracking references that no longer exist on the remote:
git fetch --prune (or git fetch -p)
If you do this, and then you run git branch -vv (verbose), you will see that although feature/niceNewFeature branch is still listed, the upstream branch is now "gone":
feature/niceNewFeature 832f7a7 [origin/feature/niceNewFeature: gone] Some commit message.
Secondly, let's remove the local branches, with the following command:
git branch -lvv | cut -c3- | awk '/: gone]/ {print $1}' | xargs git branch -d
What it does, is basically the following:
-l) branches in verbose mode (vv) (that's almost like our previous output)cuts the first and second characters from the beginning of every line (which are spaces)awk it filters the "gone" ones (/: gone]/), and gets their first column ({print $1}). Remember, the "gone" means that the remote-tracking reference doesn't exist anymore.feature/niceNewFeature in our case) is piped to git branch -d (delete) with xargs command, so it will delete the branch. Note that the branch must be fully merged in its upstream branch, because only -d option is used, not -D (which is --delete --force).