OGG… I accidentally named the branch the wrong name…

git branch
Author
Published

2024-07-13

Modified

2024-07-13

Problem

Let’s say you made a local development branch, feature/inverse-matrix-calculation. After some commits and pushes to remote, you realized that you had named the branch the wrong way.

  • the correct name: feature/inverse-matrix-calculation
  • the current name: future-inverse-matrix-calculation

Solution 1: checkout a new branch and delete the old

▶  Steps

  1. Create a new branch based on the current HEAD state at the future-inverse-matrix-calculation.
  2. Switch to the test branch
  3. Delete the old one
  4. Set the correct upstream branch

▶  Commands

## Step 1 & 2
% git switch -c future-inverse-matrix-calculation feature/inverse-matrix-calculation

## Step 3
% git branch -D future-inverse-matrix-calculation

## Step 4
% git branch feature/inverse-matrix-calculation -u <remote branch>

Solution 2: rename the branch

With the following command, you can rename a branch that was given the wrong name while keeping the upstream branch setting.

% git branch -m <old-name> <new-name>

▶  Commands

## rename using -m/--move option
% git branch -m future-inverse-matrix-calculation feature/inverse-matrix-calculation