Objectives:

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Use git stash to temporarily store that state of the working directory
• Understand the value of git stash when a clean working directory is necessary

Stashing

Sometimes you are working with certain files and do not want to add and commit them, but you do not want to discard them either. For example, maybe you're right in the middle of working on some feature when a huge update gets pushed to your remote upstream, and you need to pull the changes in right away to be sure that the code you're writing still works.

When you try to pull or merge code and you have changes in your working directory, git won't let the pull or merge to go through. In other words, you can't merge code into the branch you're working on unless your working directory is clean. So, what should you do if you're working directory isn't clean, but you aren't ready to commit yet? This is a perfect example of where stashing can help. You can think of stashing as a temporary way of remembering changes without making an official commit.

Here are the commands you can using when stashing:

git stash - stash your commits (same as git stash save)
git stash list - show the list of stashed changes
git stash apply - move the latest stashed change back into the working directory, but keep it on the list
git stash pop - move the latest stashed change back into the working directory and remove it from the list
git stash show - show the latest stash
git stash show [email protected]{number} - show a specific stashed change

You can also use git stash pop/apply [email protected]{number} to retrieve a specific stashed change.

Stashing is quite useful when you are not ready to commit something, but need a clean working directory. You can learn more about git stash here and here.