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This article explains how to create a branch from another branch in Git.

Git is a distributed version control system and is a suitable tool for version control in a collaborative development environment. In Git, we create repositories, and in repositories, we create branches to track various development work.

We often create a new branch from the mainline to fix bugs or develop new features. After completing the task, we usually merge this branch back to the mainline branch for release.

Git provides us with the ability to create a branch from another existing branch. Also, we can merge branches using Git commands.

git checkoutTo create a branch from another branch in Git, use the command

Git is a distributed version control system and a useful tool for tracking changes to a project repository.

We have multiple team members or teams working in a collaborative development environment using the same project repository. Different team members or teams can create different branches from an existing branch to work on that branch.

Suppose we have a mainline branch called in our project repository main. The bug fixing team will create a new branch called on top of that branch bugfixes. Another team or team member will create a branch featureto develop a new feature.

Once the team or team members are satisfied with the changes made in the new branch, the new branch is usually merged back into the mainline branch.

Suppose we want mainto create a branch from the mainline branch featureto develop a feature. We can use git checkoutthe command.

The syntax for creating a new branch of an existing branch is as follows.

git checkout -b <new-branch> <existing-branch>

In our example, we will execute the following command.

$ git checkout -b feature main
Switched to a new branch 'feature'

mainThus, we have created a new branch on the existing branch feature. git checkoutThe option of the command -bcauses the new branch to be created. Furthermore, it causes the new branch to be checked out.

Now we will develop new features and make changes in a new branch ie feature.

After we finish developing a feature and commit our changes to a new branch feature, we want to mainmerge this branch with the mainline branch.

We can use git mergethe command to merge featurethe branch with the mainline branch main.

First, we will git checkoutswitch to the mainline branch using the command main.

$ git checkout main
Switched to branch 'main'

We will use git mergethe command to merge featurethe branch with mainthe branch.

We will execute the command as follows.

$ git merge --no-ff feature
Updating ea1b23a..05e9201
(Summary of changes)

git mergeThe -m option of the command --no-ffalways forces the creation of a new commit object, even if a fast-forward merge is performed. It causes a merge commit to be created in all cases, even if the merge could be resolved as a fast-forward.

This is useful because when we browse the Git history, we see featureinformation about the existence of the branch. It also causes featureall commits for the branch to be grouped together.

Furthermore, when we want to featurerevert a merge of the -branch into mainthe -branch, this is much easier due to the presence of the merge commit.

In case of a fast-forward merge, no merge commit is created. Only an update of the branch pointers occurs to match the branch being merged.

Finally, we need to push our changes to the remote repository.

$ git push origin main
$ git push origin feature

So, we showed how to create a branch from another branch in Git.