Question

I thought a file created on one branch will not appear in any other branches until I merge or rebase the branch?

Example:

I have two branches:

1. master
2. new_contact_page

I checkout the new_contact_page branch.

$ git checkout new_contact_page

Then I create a new file.

$ vi contact_page.html

Without doing any Git commands, I switch back to my Master branch.

$ git checkout master

Then I see that this contact_page.html file is also in my Master branch.

$ ls   (contact_page.html shows up in the list!)

Shouldn’t the file only exist in new_contact_page branch?

Answer 1

Git will never touch any files that aren’t actually in your repository. (untracked files)

You need to git add and git commit the file (into one branch) first.