Git Stash

This little blog post is just for me to remember my favorite "git stash" commands. It took me a little while to actually use the stash, but that is because IntelliJ provides a similar functionality called "shelving", which I had used all this time.

I use branches a lot when using Git, and the problem there is that Git usually complains if I wish to change branches, while I still have uncommitted changes in my current branch. Therefore the "stash" command is for me very valuable.

Stash your current uncommitted changes:

$ git stash

Get your uncommitted changes back from the stash:

$ git stash apply

Get a list of your current stashes:

$ git stash list
stash@{0}: WIP on master: 049d078 added the index file
stash@{1}: WIP on master: c264051 Revert "added file_size"
stash@{2}: WIP on master: 21d80a5 added number to log

Remove a no longer needed stash:

$ git stash drop stash@{0}
Dropped stash@{0} (364e91f3f268f0900bc3ee613f9f733e82aaed43)

One command I particularly like is this one that does both an apply of your stash and once done automatically removes it from the list of stashes:

git stash pop

The stash has a lot of similarities to your standard Stack implementation (or Dequeue, depending on your point of view.)

I notice that if I do not clean up the place or use the "pop" subcommand, that my list of stashes tends to grow quite long unobtrusively.

View a stash without applying:

git stash show

Actually showing the contents of the stash in diff format is:

git stash show -p

The commands above work on the latest stash in your list.

References

6.3 Git Tools - Stashing

https://git-scm.com/book/en/v1/Git-Tools-Stashing

Atlassian Tutorials - Git Stash

https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/git-stash

Ariejan De Vroom - GIT: Using the stash

https://ariejan.net/2008/04/23/git-using-the-stash/

Git Stash - Man Page

https://git-scm.com/docs/git-stash

Update: added the showing of stashes without applying.