Merge and delete branch in one step/command

Question

Is it possible, to merge a branch and automatically delete it with a single command? The delete step should only be executed if merging was successful.

Answer 1

This is an old question, but for those who stumble upon it looking for this functionality, you can now add a Git alias to accomplish this. For example, in .gitconfig:

# ...  [alias]   mgd = "!git mg $1 && git br -d $1; #" 

Then, you could run git mgd branch-name to merge and delete a branch in one go. Note that the lowercase -d flag ensures that the branch will only be deleted if it has already been fully merged; thus, you don't have to worry about the first command not working correctly and then losing the branch.

The exclamation point at the beginning of the alias signifies that this is a bash command, and $1 stores the argument that the user passed in (i.e. the name of the branch to merge/delete).

NOTE: Do not forget the comment character (#) at the end of the alias! It will not work without it.

Answer 2

No, git doesn't support this at the same time.

However, you can run the commands in a shell conditionally:

git merge source-branch && git branch -d source-branch 

Edit:

-d will only remove merged branches while -D will also remove unmerged branches, so -d will ensure that the branch is merged and you don't delete a branch by accident.