Set Branch Alias with Git

By  on  

Version control systems can be difficult to use, especially when you don't use a UI app. Just think about main branch or revision names: svn uses "trunk", git uses "master", and mercurial (hg) uses "tip". I need to switch between mercurial and git frequently, so I end up reversing command and branch names constantly.

To set a git branch alias, execute the following:

# alias -> real branch
git symbolic-ref refs/heads/trunk refs/heads/master

With the alias in place, you can execute commands like:

git checkout trunk
git branch # * master

Not only can you create git aliases for commands, but you can create aliases for branches!

Recent Features

Incredible Demos

  • By
    MooTools & Printing – Creating a Links Table of Contents

    One detail we sometimes forget when considering print for websites is that the user cannot see the URLs of links when the page prints. While showing link URLs isn't always important, some websites could greatly benefit from doing so. This tutorial will show you...

  • By
    Reverse Element Order with CSS Flexbox

    CSS is becoming more and more powerful these days, almost to the point where the order of HTML elements output to the page no longer matters from a display standpoint -- CSS lets you do so much that almost any layout, large or small, is possible.  Semantics...

Discussion

  1. Michael

    Any idea how to do this in a Bitbucket repository? Can I push this symbolic refs somehow?

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