Commit a file to a Different Branch Without Checkout

Question

Is it possible to commit a file in a git branch with out checking out that branch? If so how?

Essentially I want to be able to save a file in my github pages branch without switching branches all the time. Any thoughts?

Update: It's not possible to do what I want (see comments below for use case). What I ended up doing is programmatically cloning my current directory to a tmp directory, then checking out my branch in that tmp directory (doesn't affect my working directory) and committing my files to the tmp directory clone. When I'm done, I push back to my working directory and delete the tmp directory. Sucks, but it's the only way to commit files to another branch without changing the current working branch of the working directory. If anyone has a better solution, please feel free to add it below. If it's better than 'it cannot be done', I'll accept yours.

Answer 1

It's not possible.

The changes you commit are related to the current working copy. If you want to commit to another branch it means that you could commit changes from your working copy, but base them from another copy state.

This is not a natural way of versioning your work, and this is why you need to make different steps (stash changes, checkout the branch, pop stash and commit) to accomplish it.

As for your specific use case, a simple way is to keep two copies of your work, one checked out at master branch, and the other at pages branch.

In the pages working copy, add the master copy as a remote repo.

• You commit pages on master
• Pull from master on the pages copy
• push to GitHub
• reset the master branch at its previous state.

Answer 2

It can be done by reimplementing git commit.

This can be done with various call to git hash-object

But this is hard to achieve.

Please read progit chapter 9 for more details and a full example of how to simulate a commit.