Git与Visual Studio 2013

Question

Although I have been developing with Visual Studio for years I've never had a need to get to grips with version control until recently so please excuse my ignorance if it appears I'm being stupid.

I have committed a website project to the master branch of my repository. I have created a branch underneath the master called "stage2". The intention is that the master would be used to maintain the existing live site and "stage2" would be used for developments for the next release but don't want to be included in any published builds until the development is complete. However I can't switch back to master from "stage2" while there are uncommitted changes. I think I might misunderstanding exactly how the git branches are supposed to be used. Can anyone clear this up for me?

Thanks

Answer 1

It sounds like you've got the basic idea of branches right, but that you are unfamiliar with commits. I suggest you read something like this introduction to git to try to get a basic understanding of how it works.

To answer your specific problem, you will need a clean working tree before you can checkout another branch. This basically means that you need to tell git what to do with your 'in progress' work before doing anything else. Assuming you don't want to throw away your changes, you could create a commit (or multiple commits) for your changes, or stash them for later. If the changes you have made are completed 'pieces' of work, and not just temporary bits of work in progress, then I suggest you make commits for each bit of work you've done.

Answer 2

It is true that Git will not permit you to switch branches while you have uncommitted changes.

It appears you have a few choices here:

1. Abandon the changes in your current branch with git reset --hard
2. Store away the current state, temporarily, with git stash . When you return to the Feature Branch you can use git stash pop to restore your work
3. Make a commit of your current work on this branch and then switch branches

You have the concept correct; a Feature Branch is used to "do some work" with [usually] several commits along the way. Commits are cheap and easy and you can always use Rebase to squash a noisy history down if you prefer. Branches are lightweight and cheap so you are encouraged to use them.