How to copy the changes from one branch to a sibling branch

[guostong]

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Our version control structure is as below:
Dev and production release branch are sibling, they are all branched out from master, when we apply hotfix production release branch, we will manually apply the same changes to dev branch. My question is can we somehow copy the changes from Production release branch to Dev branch?

[quintyn]

Yes to copy changes from prod release to dev, you can:

1. Merge: Switch to the Dev branch and merge in the Production branch. This brings all changes over at once.

git checkout dev
git merge production-release-branch

2. Cherry-pick: If you only want specific commits (like a hotfix), you can cherry-pick them from Production into Dev.

git checkout dev
git cherry-pick

3. Rebase: For a cleaner history, you could rebase Dev onto the Production branch, though this can be more complex if there are conflicts.

git checkout dev
git rebase production-release-branch

[guostong]

thank you, cherry-pick works

[abdulrahmanRadan]

There are several ways to achieve this.
I will assume that you want to merge via GitHub, but if you prefer to merge using Git on your machine, feel free to let me know.

Method via GitHub

Let’s assume you have two sibling branches named Production and Dev, both branched out from the main branch Master, and you want to merge changes between these two branches without affecting Master. Here are the steps to accomplish this:

1. Create a Pull Request between the sibling branches:

   • Open your project in GitHub and navigate to the Pull Requests tab.
   • Click on New Pull Request to create a new merge request.
   • Select the Dev branch as the base branch that will receive the changes, and the Production branch as the compare branch from which to pull changes.

2. Review and confirm the request:

   • After selecting the branches, you will see a comparison of the proposed changes. Be sure to review the changes to ensure they are correct and align with what you want to merge.
   • Click on Create Pull Request to initiate the request, and you can add a description explaining the nature of the changes if you wish.

3. Merge the changes without affecting the main branch:

   • After creating the Pull Request, you can review the request and approve it by clicking Merge.
   • This way, the changes will only be merged between Production and Dev, without transferring any of these changes to Master.

Note: As long as the Pull Request was created between the sibling branches Production and Dev only, it will not affect the main branch Master.

[guostong]

Thank you, sounds like the solution I expected, it will be great if you can provide a git command solution

[abdulrahmanRadan]

Certainly, the solution using Git is much simpler. Here are the steps:

Assuming you have two sibling branches (as explained in the GitHub method), Production and Dev, and you want to merge changes from Production into Dev without affecting Master.

1. Switch to the target branch:

   git checkout Dev

2. Merge changes from the source branch:

   git merge Production

3. Push changes to GitHub (optional):

   git push origin Dev

Note: This approach keeps the changes confined to Production and Dev only, without impacting Master.

[davevad93]

Hi @guostong ,

You can merge the changes from Production release to Dev with git commands by doing this:

1. Switch to Dev branch.

git checkout Dev

2. Merge the commits from Production release to the current branch which is Dev.

git merge Production release

3. Push the changes to the remote repo.

git push origin Dev