How to Improve Your Git Checkout Process

August 01, 2020

TL;DR

You will need FZF, git, and a linux/unix-based operating system to follow along. The same workflow is probably possible on Windows, but I don’t know how to do it.

Here is the command, I recommend setting up an alias for it:

git branch | fzf | xargs git checkout

My previous workflow

If you are like me, you work on projects with a ton of git branches. I work on one project which has 87 branches at the moment, and another with 36.

When I need to switch branches, I can never remember what the name of the branch I am looking for is. Today, I started thinking about how I could fix that, besides jumping into a GUI application to see an easier-to-work-with list.

Improving the workflow

One of my favorite command line tools is FZF. FZF is a tool which allows you to pipe text into it, then filter it.

I started out playing with my idea in the most simple form:

git branch | fzf

This presents an interface like this:

* main
  branch-6
  branch-5
  branch-4
  branch-3
  branch-2
  branch-1
  7/7
> |

The caret at the bottom is where you can type in your filter. As you type, the list will get shorter. Eventually, you select the option you are looking for.

The selected item is printed to stdout:

$ git branch | fzf
  branch-1

Now that I knew how to get the item I wanted, I needed to use it in an execution of git checkout. I tried this:

git branch | fzf | git checkout

Unfortunately, git checkout does not seem to accept its argument from the standard input stream. This sent me on a web search, where I found xargs.

I have seen xargs in the past, but never taken a few minutes to familiarize myself with it. As it turns out, xargs was exactly what I needed.

xargs takes content from the standard input stream, and uses that content as string argument(s) for the execution of whatever utility you pass to it. Here is an example using it:

$ echo "Hello," "world"
Hello, world
$ echo "Hello, world" | xargs echo
Hello, world
$ echo "world" | xargs echo "Hello,"
Hello, world

First, I show that echo can accept many string arguments, which get concatenated with a space character. Next, I show an example of using xargs to pass the only argument to echo. Finally, I show that we can even pass arguments directly to the executed utility, and use xargs to append stdout as more arguments.

Here is how it looks to apply this to our git checkout execution:

git branch | fzf | xargs git checkout

Using this line, git checkout will be given whatever I choose in fzf as an argument. If I choose branch-1, the execution is the same as typing git checkout branch-1 manually.

This was exactly what I was looking for, and here is what it looks like in action:

$ git branch | fzf | xargs git checkout
Switched to branch 'branch-1'

Thank You, Friend

Thanks for stopping by, I really hope this helped you!