How can I get my current branch compared with another remote branch in Git? not master

Question

When I run git st(atus) in a repository with current branch set to master , it says:

On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
nothing to commit, working directory clean

But when I run that command when I am in branch blah , it says:

On branch blah
nothing to commit, working directory clean

I want it to be checked with the remote branch (being ahead or behind the remote branch blah )

How can I do that?

Answer 1

You need to setup your local branch blah to track the remote branch origin/blah :

git checkout blah
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/blah

or from any branch:

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

You can get a nice summary of the state of your local branches compared to the remote ones they track with git status -vv

<branchname> <head-sha1> [<upstream/branchname>: ahead/behind num] <commit-message>

Answer 2

You can just use diff

git diff --name-status HEAD origin/not-master

To view the difference in terms of non-shared commits:

git log --oneline --left-right --graph --cherry-mark HEAD ... origin/not-master