I've done some changes to my code in branch1, but now I need to move those changes to another branch. Graphically, I have:
master
|___develop
|___branch1
and I need to move all the uncommitted changes and untracked files to a new branch branch2 (which does not exist):
master
|___develop
|___branch1
|___branch2
after which I'll just delete branch1 since all its changes are already pushed, and be left with all the uncommitted changes and untracked files in branch2:
master
|___develop
|___branch2
There are quite a few of similar questions in SO but I'm still not sure how I should proceed in my case. Some say to use git stash (How do I merge my local uncommitted changes into another Git branch?, moving changed files to another branch for check-in) which in my case I guess would be:
git stash -u
git checkout develop
git checkout -b branch2
git stash pop
but other answers (Put current changes in a new Git branch, Moving uncommitted changes to a new branch) say to simply use checkout as:
git checkout -b branch2
but I'm not sure if this will carry my untracked files too. There's a newer answer that recommends using switch (Move existing, uncommitted work to a new branch in Git), but my git version 2.17.1 does not have this command.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Using stash is safer, as it avoids any problems that might pop up with switching branches with a dirty working directory. stash even has a subcommand for directly creating a branch from a stash.
git stash -u
git checkout develop
git stash branch branch2