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Comment by lalaithion

3 months ago

None of these seem to preclude a command to make an arbitrary branch point to an arbitrary commit without changing anything else.

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lalaithion

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karatinversion  3 months ago

You are looking for

  git update-ref <branch-name> <commit-sha>

  • DiggyJohnson  3 months ago

    Wouldn't the fail or break under any circumstance where they don't immediately share a history?

    • karatinversion  3 months ago

      I just tested it by creating a repo with two branches without a common ancestor, and I was able to move a branch pointer to either history with update-ref, so no, I don't think so

fragmede  3 months ago

This works if the branch exists or creates it if it doesn't exist, but not if it's checked out.

    git branch -f branch_name commit

if it's checked out:

    git reset --hard commit

  • seba_dos1  3 months ago

    > but not if it's checked out

    ...and for a good reason that should be apparent to anyone who understands git's model (HEAD points to a ref in this case, so if you suddenly change what that ref points to without updating the working tree you create an inconsistency).

    You can do that manually of course (with `git update-ref` or even a text editor), but then you get to clean up the mess yourself.