Tag: windows-only

How to create a local copy of a remote branch in Visual Studio – 116

Suppose you’ve cloned a project from a GitHub repo that contains multiple branches. By default, Git pulls down the main tracking branch (e.g. master in most cases). That’s why you see a local checked-out (bolded) master and a remotes/origin master branch.

For the other branches under remotes/origin, Git doesn’t automatically pull these down. The branches listed under remotes/origin are called “remote tracking branches”. I believe these are also referred to as “remote branches” but the “tracking” is implied. Can you have a remote branch that isn’t a remote tracking branch? I guess not. I guess even if you checked out a “remote tracking branch” without the tracking flag (or without the checkbox checked), you’d still have the original “remote tracking branch” alongside the local non-tracked branch.

You cannot check out these remote branches directly. I guess if you could, you’d be working directly on the server instead of your local machine, which wouldn’t make too much sense, and probably wouldn’t be possible since a bare git repo (aka the git server you’re checking out from) doesn’t have a concept of a working directory. No idea. Just thinking out loud here.

Suppose you want to checkout the `for-review` branch to do work. First you’d need to create a new branch. Note just like 13* we’re going the long way around, meaning we’re not going to choose the “checkout” command in the context menu. We’re going to manually create the local branch first, then checkout, to see the process.

First, right click on the remote branch, and select New Local Branch From on the context menu, just as if you were creating any other branch. The Create Branch window section will appear.

Note how Visual Studio auto-populates the name of the local branch as `for-review` You could change the local branch name. You could also do `private string @long`. I’m sure the `@long` is far worse.

Checking the Create Branch button creates the local `for review` branch. Because the default is the Checkout branch option checked, the `for-review` is bolded.

I believe the Checkout command on the context menu for a remote branch will perform the above steps, but I’m not sure if there are any differences. For example, I’d assume the checkout command keeps the defaults (e.g. Track remote branch and Checkout branch – of course). In any case, when I’m trying to learn something new, it is helpful for me to see what is going on step-by-step as much as possible.

If I have any of the above terminology wrong, please let me know!!

*Heaven Sent was one of the best Doctor Who episodes in a LONG time. Wow, just wow.

How to resolve a conflict during a rebase in Visual Studio – 115

Similar to yesterday’s tip, but today, you’ll see how to resolve a conflict when rebasing within Visual Studio.

Suppose you have the same line in the same file modified in different branches. Just something simple to trigger a merge conflict. Or more likely, you’ve added one file in master and you’ve added another file in an experiment branch. Then you get a conflict when rebasing because your project file needs help merging the two newly added files.

First, you’ll get the message that there are conflicts.

Click on the Conflicts: 1 link.

Clicking on the Merge button will bring up the built-in merge tool.

Make whatever selections you want, and then hit Accept Merge.

Now View Changes, as you’ve resolved the conflicts, but still need to finish the rebase.

And finally finish the rebase! (For some reason, I can’t stop hearing the Mortal Kombat game in my head.)

And now you’ll see that the experiment branch has been merged onto master.

How to do a rebase in Visual Studio – 114

Suppose you’ve added a new file to your solution in a branch called `experiment` for experimental purposes. You are happy with this new file and want to merge this back into master. Well, let’s say you (or someone like you*) made a change in master.

Since this is on your local machine, you can decide “do I want to have the history of the experiment branch or do I want a clean, linear timeline?” Guess which adventure you’re going to choose today 🙂

Here’s the visual setup.

Notice how the tip of experiment has a commit that’s not in Master, and vice versa, the tip of master has a commit that’s not in experiment.

First, we’ll use Team Explorer to rebase experiment unto master. BTW I love how Team Explorer uses full sentences to confirm your intent.

Now after the rebase, you’ll see two things:

The commit from master is now shown in the experiment branch (recall the visualization from previous posts – the master pointer is now behind experimental pointer)
The commit ID for “added experimental code” has changed (You can compare to the first image in this blog post to verify)

And lastly, let’s get master caught up to experiment by doing a merge. Yay for full sentences in the below image!

And now when you refresh Master history, you’ll see the changes.

*I couldn’t resist. I listened to way too much Matchbox 20 in my youth, “I wish the real world would just stop hassling me .”

How to add a custom Git command to your Visual Studio menu – 110

Following yesterday’s tip, you can also add a custom Git command as an external tool.

For example, my output window shows the output of `git log –oneline –graph –decorate`

Go to Tools – External Tools and add a custom tool similar to the screenshot I have below, where Title = `git log`, Command = `git.ext`, Arguments = `log –oneline –decoreate –graph`. If you click the Right Arrow button to the right of Initial Directory, you can choose where the current directory is for git commands. I’m using Current Solution $(SolutionDir) which is an internal variable to Visual Studio.