Question

How could I check if feature_branch and origin/feature_branch point to the same commit?

Answer 1

You can compare the output of git-rev-parse, such as in this bit of shell script:

export BRANCH_A=feature_branch
export BRANCH_B=origin/feature_branch

if [ x"$(git rev-parse $BRANCH_A)" = x"$(git rev-parse $BRANCH_B)" ]
then
    echo $BRANCH_A and $BRANCH_B are the same
fi

If you’re not interested in using this in a script, but just want some indication of where feature_branch and origin/feature_branch are relative to each other, then the top of the output of git status will tell you their relative positions if they are not the same, e.g.:

$ git status
# On branch foo
# Your branch is behind 'origin/foo' by 187 commits, and can be fast-forwarded.

However, note that this only works if your git config indicates that origin/feature_branch is “upstream” for feature_branch. If you’ve created the local branch from a pre-existing remote-tracking branch, this will typically be the case. If, instead, feature_branch was a new branch you created locally, you can set up that association in your config by pushing the branch with -u, e.g. git push -u origin feature_branch.)