git - Renaming a branch while on pull request

Question

On Github, you can make pull requests to add functionality to a project. One's contributions have to be on a branch that, if the request is accepted, will be merged into the master branch (or an analogous one) of the project.

Now, I submitted a pull request on Github and my contributions are on a branch called patch-1. I can modify the name of the branch locally by

git branch -m patch-1 newname

and in principle I can also rename it on my forked repo on Github by following the instruction found in this answer. This is done in practice by removing the old branch, patch-1 in my case, and repush it with a different name newname.

Is it allowed to rename the branch patch-1 on my forked repository on Github when it constitutes a pull request? Or it causes problems on the pull request management?

Is there any way to rename a branch on a forked repository on Github when that branch is a pull request?

Answer 1

"Renaming" a remote branch in git, as indicated by the link you provided, is really just deleting a branch, followed by pushing a new one with the same commit hash but a new name. If you have a pull request open for branch patch-1, when you delete that branch, the pull request will be closed.

So, no you can't rename the branch with a pull request open without deleting the branch and removing the pull request. However, there's nothing stopping you from doing that, pushing a new branch with a new name, and creating a new pull request.