Multiple features for one branch - what's the point?
atlassian-sourcetree, branch, git, git-checkout, git-flow
Solution
`git` allows you to switch branches even if you have uncommitted changes in your current branch. The files remain uncommitted and you can commit them in the other branch if you need to. This is great when you realize that you've done work on `feature/feature1` that should be on `feature/feature2`.
Once you have committed the changes, they do not switch between branches any more. You then could merge or cherry pick changes between branches.
Note that `git` will not allow you to switch branches if you have uncommitted changes that cause merge conflicts in the branch you want to switch to, and maybe even if one of your changes is in a file that has been changed and committed in the branch you want to switch to. In that case you need to commit, revert or stash your changes first.
If `git` does not allow you to switch branches and you try to resolve that by stashing your changes before switching branches, you should make sure that you stash pop in the original branch. If you are on `feature/feature1`, stash changes, then switch to `feature/feature2` and stash pop there, you will loose changes that were present in `feature/feature2` but not in `feature/feature1`. This is hard to detect.
Problem
On SourceTree, I have one branch called "develop". I use SourceTree Git Flow to create a new feature from the "develop" branch. I make changes to the feature branch and then finish the feature and the changes go back to my "develop" branch. I then push these changes to the remote. Now, here's what I was trying to do. I had to work on two JIRA tasks at the same time. So I created two feature branches from the "develop" branch: "develop/feature1" and "develop/feature2". I can switch between the features by double clicking them when selected on SourceTree. I can then check the working copy for both feature branches, but I noticed that files I added to one have also been added to the other. My questions are: When I add files to one feature's working copy why do they appear in another feature's working copy? What is the point of having feature branches if they can't isolate changes from each other?