Creating an orphan branch in Git is a straightforward process. An orphan branch is a new branch that starts with no previous commits, creating a clean slate. This can be useful for starting a new project or for creating a project section that is unrelated to the previous commits.
Here’s how you can create an orphan branch in Git:
1. Open your terminal (command line).
2. Navigate to your Git repository:
cd /path/to/your/repo
3. Create the orphan branch with the --orphan option. Replace new-orphan-branch with your desired branch name:
git checkout --orphan new-orphan-branch
4. After switching to the new orphan branch, you’ll find that all files from previous commits will show as untracked. You can either add new files or keep existing files (tracked or untracked). If you want to clear out the working area to start fresh, you can remove all files:
git rm -rf .
(Optional) Note: Be careful with this command as it will delete local changes to files that are not committed.
5. Now, you can add new files or create files as needed:
touch newfile.txt # Create a new file
6. Stage the new files:
git add newfile.txt
7. Finally, commit your changes on the new orphan branch:
git commit -m "Initial commit on new orphan branch"
You now have a new orphan branch that is completely independent of the commit history of your main branch or any other branches in the repository.
To verify that the orphan branch is created, you can use:
git branch
This will list all branches, and you should see new-orphan-branch in the list.