branch and checkout using a single command

Question

Creating and using a new branch involves two commands:

$ git branch new_branch_name $ git checkout new_branch_name 

I tend to forget the latter, which can be annoying. Is there a way to do this using a single command? Perhaps using an alias, or something similar? I know I could write a shell function, but that seems a bit much work for such a simple and common task.

Bazaar does support this to some degree using the bzr branch --switch notation.

Answer 1

While writing the question, and finding “What is the difference between "git branch" and "git checkout -b"?” in the list of similar questions, I found the answer myself:

$ git checkout -b new_branch_name 

I guess I was reading the man page for the wrong command, I was expecting this as part of the branch command, not for checkout. Quoting the man page for checkout:

Specifying -b causes a new branch to be created as if git-branch(1) were called and then checked out.

Just what I was looking for.