Git Branch Autocompletion

By  on  

Naming git branches is something most of us have down to a science. My branch naming pattern is usually {issue number}-short-feature-description, though many developers prefer to lead with the description and end with the issue.

Regardless of the pattern you use, having a feature like autocomplete can save you a lot of time typing or copy/pasting. Here's how you can implement autocomplete for git branches!

Start by downloading the git-completion.sh file from GitHub:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/git/git/master/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash -o ~/.git-completion.bash

Next, add the following to your ~/.bash_profile file:

if [ -f ~/.git-completion.bash ]; then
  . ~/.git-completion.bash
fi

The last step is restarting your terminal. Voila! Now you can type git checkout {search-string} and press tab to select the lone branch that matches or hit tab again to see all matches!

Autocomplete for git makes navigating all of my branches much faster!

Recent Features

  • By
    9 Mind-Blowing Canvas Demos

    The <canvas> element has been a revelation for the visual experts among our ranks.  Canvas provides the means for incredible and efficient animations with the added bonus of no Flash; these developers can flash their awesome JavaScript skills instead.  Here are nine unbelievable canvas demos that...

  • By
    Create a CSS Cube

    CSS cubes really showcase what CSS has become over the years, evolving from simple color and dimension directives to a language capable of creating deep, creative visuals.  Add animation and you've got something really neat.  Unfortunately each CSS cube tutorial I've read is a bit...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    dwProgressBar v2:  Stepping and Events

    dwProgressBar was a huge hit when it debuted. For those of you who didn't catch my first post, dwProgressBar is a MooTools 1.2-based progress bar which allows for as much flexibility as possible. Every piece of dwProgressBar can be controlled by CSS...

  • By
    Parallax Sound Waves Animating on Scroll

    Scrolling animations are fun. They are fun to create and fun to use. If you are tired of bootstrapping you might find playing with scrolling animations as a nice juicy refreshment in your dry front-end development career. Let's have a look how to create animating...

Discussion

  1. JONATHAN DOS SANTOS

    this needs to find it’s way into official distribuition!

  2. Andras Somi

    If you use zsh + oh-my-zsh, you can get the same effect with the git plugin.

  3. Djibril

    Can probably run source ~/.bash_profile if you don’t want to restart your terminal

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