How to view the changes in a Git stash?

Introduction

Git stash is a powerful feature that allows you to temporarily save your local changes without committing them. In this tutorial, you will learn how to view the changes in a Git stash, as well as how to manage and work with your stashed changes effectively.

Skills Graph

Understanding Git Stash

Git Stash is a powerful feature in Git that allows you to temporarily save your local changes without committing them. This is particularly useful when you need to switch to a different branch or task, but you don't want to lose the work you've done.

When you stash your changes, Git creates a new stash entry that contains the current state of your working directory and the index. You can then switch to a different branch, work on something else, and later restore the stashed changes.

The main use cases for Git Stash include:

1. Switching Branches: When you need to switch to a different branch but have uncommitted changes, you can stash your changes, switch to the other branch, and then apply the stashed changes later.

2. Applying Partial Changes: If you have a mix of changes that you want to commit separately, you can stash the changes you don't want to commit immediately, commit the changes you do want to commit, and then apply the stashed changes later.

3. Cleaning up your Workspace: If you have a lot of untracked or modified files in your working directory, you can stash them to clean up your workspace before pulling or merging changes from a remote repository.

To use Git Stash, you can run the following commands:

## Stash your current changes
git stash

## List all stashed changes
git stash list

## Apply the most recent stash
git stash apply

## Apply a specific stash
git stash apply stash@{index}

## Drop the most recent stash
git stash drop

## Apply and then drop the most recent stash
git stash pop

By understanding the basics of Git Stash, you can effectively manage your local changes and switch between tasks or branches without losing your work.

Viewing Changes in a Stash

After you have stashed your changes, you may want to review what was actually stashed. Git provides several ways to view the changes in a stash.

Listing Stashed Changes

To see a list of all the stashed changes, you can use the git stash list command:

git stash list

This will display all the stashed changes, including the commit message, the branch from which the changes were stashed, and the stash index.

Viewing the Diff of a Stash

To view the actual changes that were stashed, you can use the git stash show command. This will display the diff between the stashed changes and the current state of the repository.

## View the diff of the most recent stash
git stash show

## View the diff of a specific stash
git stash show stash@{index}

You can also add the -p or --patch option to see the full patch instead of just a summary:

git stash show -p
git stash show stash@{index} -p

Viewing the Files in a Stash

If you want to see the list of files that were stashed, you can use the git stash show --name-only command:

## Show the files in the most recent stash
git stash show --name-only

## Show the files in a specific stash
git stash show stash@{index} --name-only

This will display the list of files that were modified, added, or deleted in the stashed changes.

By understanding these commands, you can easily review the changes that are currently stashed, which can be helpful when deciding how to apply or manage those changes.

Managing Stashed Changes

After you have stashed your changes, you may need to manage those stashed changes in various ways. Git provides several commands to help you with this.

Applying Stashed Changes

To apply the changes from the most recent stash, you can use the git stash apply command:

git stash apply

This will apply the changes from the most recent stash to your current working directory and index.

If you want to apply a specific stash, you can use the stash@{index} syntax to specify the stash you want to apply:

git stash apply stash@{2}

Dropping Stashed Changes

If you no longer need a stashed change, you can remove it from the stash list using the git stash drop command:

## Drop the most recent stash
git stash drop

## Drop a specific stash
git stash drop stash@{2}

Applying and Dropping in One Step

If you want to apply a stash and then immediately drop it, you can use the git stash pop command:

## Apply and drop the most recent stash
git stash pop

## Apply and drop a specific stash
git stash pop stash@{2}

This is a convenient way to apply a stash and remove it from the stash list in a single step.

Clearing the Entire Stash

If you want to remove all the stashed changes, you can use the git stash clear command:

git stash clear

This will remove all the stashed changes from the stash list.

By understanding these commands, you can effectively manage your stashed changes, applying them when needed, removing them when no longer required, and keeping your stash list clean and organized.

Summary

By the end of this guide, you will have a solid understanding of how to view the changes in a Git stash, as well as how to manage and work with your stashed changes. This knowledge will help you keep your Git repository organized and streamline your development workflow.