git - moving changed files to another branch for check-in

Question

This often happens to me: I write some code, go to check in my changes, and then realize I'm not in the proper branch to check in those changes. However I can't switch to another branch without my changes reverting. Is there a way to move changes to another branch to be checked in there?

Answer 1

git stash is your friend.

If you have not made the commit yet, just run git stash. This will save away all of your changes.

Switch to the branch you want the changes on and run git stash pop.

There are lots of uses for git stash. This is certainly one of the more useful reasons.

An example:

# work on some code
git stash
git checkout correct-branch
git stash pop

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Update: No need to use stash command. uncommitted changes do not belong to any branch so just use git checkout -b <new-branch>