Git to Remember

Some useful Git commands, some of them for regular use but most you just need every once in a while. Here is where I remember them.

Checkout a file from another branch

git checkout master ./path-to-file

Passing a file path to the checkout command checks out only that file from the branch specified. This is mostly useful to clean up messes.

Delete merged branches locally

git fetch --prune

Useful when doing some housekeeping.

Checkout the previously checked out branch

git checkout -

Quickly navigate between branches.

Connect a local branch to a remote branch

git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/foo foo

This becomes necessary from time to time. You can also use -u= instead of --set-upstream-to=.

Change the remote

git remote set-url <name> <new-url>

Necessary after migrating a repo, i. e. to a new host or if a fork upstream has changed.