git find

If you’re like me you might have tens (or hundreds?) of “draft branches” from various spikes, experiments and aborted attempts at features.

git find searches through your local branches to find a branch that has the code you’re looking for in it’s diff. Usage:

$ git find

Search through all local branches for a string in the diff. Usage:

git-find &lt;string&gt;
git-find &lt;string&gt; &lt;base_branch&gt;

$ git find vnc

base branch: master

DAT-20177_debug_flaky_specs
DAT-20177_flaky_drafts

To set this up, place this script somewhere in your path. Git will automatically translate git find to git-find:

git-find:

#! /bin/bash

# set the default base branch
DEFAULT_BASE_BRANCH="master"

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo -e "\nSearch through all local branches for a string in the diff. Usage:\n"
  echo -e "git-find [string]"
  echo -e "git-find [string] [base_branch]\n"
  exit 1
fi

base_branch="${2:-$DEFAULT_BASE_BRANCH}"

# Check if the base branch exists
if ! git show-ref --verify --quiet "refs/heads/$base_branch"; then
  echo "Base branch '$base_branch' does not exist."
  exit 1
fi

echo "base branch: $base_branch"

for branch in $(git branch --format='%(refname:short)'); do
  diff_output=$(git diff "$(git merge-base "$branch" "$base_branch")" "$branch" | grep "$1")
  if [ -n "$diff_output" ]; then
    echo "$branch"
  fi
done

galori