Committing to a Branch

Goals

By the end of this lesson you should be able to

• Explain how branch pointers will update as you make commits

Working with Branches

Right now, your repository looks something like the figure below (but your commit IDs will be different):

Figure: Initial Branch Configuration

In the next few lessons you will experiment with how Git behaves as you work in different branches. For now, let's commit a couple changes to the master branch and see the result.

1. Add the following line of text to the git-cheat-sheet.txt file: The 'git commit' command records on the active branch all changes that have been added the index.
2. Commit this change:

   $ git commit -am "A note about the commit command"
   [master 70b4290] A note about the commit command
    1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
   

3. Add another line of text to the git-cheat-sheet.txt file: The 'git restore' command can be used to undo changes.
4. Commit this change too:

   $ git commit -am "A note about the restore command"
   [master 1ebc7b1] A note about the restore command
    1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
   

5. View the log:

   $ git log --oneline
   1ebc7b1 (HEAD -> master) A note about the restore command
   70b4290 A note about the commit command
   08f4897 (tag: anothertag, mybranch) Renamed git.txt
   714c41e Removed unnecessary files
   39fa5fc Revert "Revert "Added note about the 'git add' command""
   ...
   

Note the following:

• master points to the most recent commit
• mybranch points to the same commit that it did before

As you make commits, those commits get appended to the active branch. Other branches are left where they are.

The graph of commits in your repository now looks something like the figure below:

Figure: Final Branch Configuration