Checkout the Previous Branch with git

By  on  

Command line shortcuts are can be a huge time saver, which is why I like creating bash aliases and and enjoy other tricks I've found.  I do have a list of tasks I don't yet have a shortcut for, like easy switching between my current branch and the previous branch.  I have to do this often when I update master via remote pull and then rebasing a feature branch, and since many of my branch names include a hard to remember bug number, switching between branches is a pain.

I recently found out that you can switch the the previous branch you were on using the following command:

git checkout master

# Do whatever
git pull remote master

# Go back to the previous branch
git checkout -

Using - references the previous branch name, thus allowing you to navigate branches with ease!

Recent Features

  • By
    How I Stopped WordPress Comment Spam

    I love almost every part of being a tech blogger:  learning, preaching, bantering, researching.  The one part about blogging that I absolutely loathe:  dealing with SPAM comments.  For the past two years, my blog has registered 8,000+ SPAM comments per day.  PER DAY.  Bloating my database...

  • By
    Being a Dev Dad

    I get asked loads of questions every day but I'm always surprised that they're rarely questions about code or even tech -- many of the questions I get are more about non-dev stuff like what my office is like, what software I use, and oftentimes...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Fixing sIFR Printing with CSS and MooTools

    While I'm not a huge sIFR advocate I can understand its allure. A customer recently asked us to implement sIFR on their website but I ran into a problem: the sIFR headings wouldn't print because they were Flash objects. Here's how to fix...

  • By
    CSS Rounded Corners

    The ability to create rounded corners with CSS opens the possibility of subtle design improvements without the need to include images.  CSS rounded corners thus save us time in creating images and requests to the server.  Today, rounded corners with CSS are supported by all of...

Discussion

  1. Sam

    Like in the terminal:

    cd -

    To return to the previously visited directory.

  2. Also useful when you want to merge the branch that you were just working on into dev/master (or any branch really)

    git checkout master
    git merge -
    

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!