Question

Tried to use what’s here, but that doesn’t solve things for me.

I’ve got a local repo in git, cloned from a remote repo, development. I branch locally to play around with a new feature in a branch called newBranchName and call git push origin newBranchName to set up the new branch on the remote repo.

Now when I try to push, git seems to be pushing my newBranchName local branch into everything the old branch tracked as well. I want that to stop.

Here’s an extended sample of what I mean. I’m going to create a local branch, add a file, commit locally, then push to a new branch on the remote server. So far, so good.

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (oldBranch)
$ git branch testingStuff

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (oldBranch)
$ git checkout testingStuff
Switched to branch 'testingStuff'

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ vim test.txt

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ git add test.txt

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ git commit -a
[testingStuff 11468d8] Testing git; can trash this branch.
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 test.txt

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ git push origin testingStuff
Counting objects: 4, done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 299 bytes, done.
Total 3 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
To http://url/to/remote/repo.git
 * [new branch]      testingStuff -> testingStuff

Now, I’ll edit that test.txt file, commit the change, and push. This is what confuses me.

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ vim test.txt

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ git commit -a
[testingStuff 2be7063] more testing git
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ git push
Counting objects: 5, done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 276 bytes, done.
Total 3 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
To http://url/to/remote/repo.git
   11468d8..2be7063  testingStuff -> testingStuff
 ! [rejected]        oldBranch -> remoteTrackedByOldBranch (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to 'http://url/to/remote/repo.git'
To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected
Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing again.  See the
'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details.

I want to continue pushing to testingStuff remotely, but want to stop pushing to remoteTrackedByOldBranch when I type git push. I don’t want to delete any branch — seems a number of answers to similar questions suggest deleting rather than untracking. Nor do I want to know how to push to a specific branch only by explicitly naming it in the git push command. Too many muscle-memory mistakes that way. I want git push to push to origin/testingStuff only.

I’ve already unsmartly (a word which proves itself) butchered my .git/config trying to accomplish this, and it’s still pushing to remoteTrackedByOldBranch.

EDIT: Here’s what my .git/config file looks like after doing the above:

[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = false
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
        symlinks = false
        ignorecase = true
        hideDotFiles = dotGitOnly
[remote "origin"]
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
        url = http://url/to/remote/repo.git
[branch "master"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/master
[branch "oldBranch"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/oldBranch

Nothing about the testingStuff branch in there.

EDIT: git branch -avv output:

Administrator@BOXEN /path/to/working/dir (testingStuff)
$ git branch -avv
  master                                 721aa61 initial setup
  projectFork1                           e132f5f Fixed Construction grid labels getting sliced.
  projectFork2                           1d20317 initial load
  oldBranch                              1d20317 initial load
* testingStuff                           192f622 Still testing
  remotes/origin/HEAD                    -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/empty                   ec1c694 initial setup
  remotes/origin/joeUserFork1            771f43e Initial Load
  remotes/origin/master                  721aa61 initial setup
  remotes/origin/projectFork1            e132f5f Fixed Construction grid labels getting sliced.
  remotes/origin/oldBranch               1d20317 initial load
  remotes/origin/joeUserFork2            dc605e8 What was sent initially.
  remotes/origin/testingStuff            192f622 Still testing
  remotes/origin/upload_master           0d8c440 Initial Load

Answer 1

Only push the branch you’re on

By default, git will push all of your tracking branches whenever you issue a git push with no arguments. to make it only push the branch you’re on

git config push.default upstream # git 1.7.10
git config push.default tracking # older vesions use "tracking" instead of "upstream"

if you want git to always work like that – you can use the –global switch or simply edit your ~/.gitconfig file to suit.

Stop tracking a remote branch

git’s config is just a file. Quite often the easiest way to investigate and or fix your git config – is simply to open your .git/config file and edit it

e.g. if you have a section like this in your .git/config file:

[branch "develop"]
    remote = origin
    merge = refs/heads/develop
    rebase = true

and you make it:

[branch "develop"]
    rebase = true

your branch nolonger tracks anything. You can also just delete the whole section and git will act the same.