Keep Various Versions of Apps with 'Git Branch'

For some reasons, we need to keep different versions of the same app in the git repository. For example, a new function such as user authentication is added and the old version must be kept in the same time for future reference.

A git command ‘git branch’ can be used to satisfy the need. The default branch of the repository is master, we can create a new branch to preserve the original version (i.e. 01_basic). Then we can keep on developing new function in the master branch.

Create a new branch to preserve the original version.

List all branch name:

> git branch 
* master

Create a new branch ‘01_basic’:

> git branch 01_basic
> git branch
  01_basic
* master 

If we need to switch to the 01_basic branch, just:

> git checkout 01_basic
> git branch
* 01_basic
  master

*: the current branch

Other git operations:

> git branch -m 01_basic basic  // rename branch
> git branch -d 01_basic        // delete branch
> git checkout -b 02  // create and switch to branch 02    

Push all branches to the remote repository (i.e. github.com)

After several modifications of code in the ‘master’ branch, branch ‘01_basic’ and branch ‘master’ have had two different codebases. What if we need to push all branches to the remote repository (i.e. github.com)?

We can do it as:

> git push origin --all
Username for 'https://github.com': chaoyee
Password for 'https://chaoyee@github.com':
   :
To https://github.com/chaoyee/laravel_product.git
   151c1b9..5618f74  master -> master
 * [new branch]      01_basic -> 01_basic

The two branches shown on the webpage of github.com