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Here's a preview from my zine, Oh Shit, Git! If you want to see more comics like this, sign up for my saturday comics newsletter or browse more comics!

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A branch in git is a pointer to a commit SHA

master → 2e9fab awesome-feature → 3bafea fix-typo → 9a9a9a

Here’s some proof! In your favourite git repo, run this command:

$ cat .git/refs/heads/master
“master” is just a text file with the commit SHA master points at!

Understanding what a branch is will make it WAY EASIER to fix your branches when they’re broken: you just need to figure out how to get your branch to point at the right commit again!

3 main ways to change the commit a branch points to:

  • git commit will point the branch at the new commit
  • git pull will point the branch at the same commit as the remote branch
  • git reset COMM T_SHA will point the branch at COMM T_SHA