switch branch in git by partial name

Question

If I have the following branches in git

1194-qa-server
master
remotes/origin/1178-authentication
remotes/origin/1194-qa-server
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/master

I want to switch to a branch using --just-- the number, even if that requires calling a script For example:

switch_branch 1178

and the script/solution should do the following

1. git branch -a (find all branches local and remote in my repository)
2. filter by the given parameter ('1178' above)
3. extract the name of the branch that git can use
4. switch to that branch

What is the recommended way to do it without having to perform all these steps manually?

I am using Mac OSX, if that matters here.

update -- bash-it (github.com/revans/bash-it) serves my purpose

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Answer 1

There are very few occasions where you'd want to checkout remotes/origin/*. They exist but for the purposes of this shortcut, let's not worry about them. This will get you what you want on OSX:

git config --global alias.sco '!sh -c "git branch -a | grep -v remotes | grep $1 | xargs git checkout"'

You can then issue git sco <number> to checkout a branch that includes <number> but excludes "remotes". You can change sco to be anything you'd like. I just picked it for "super checkout".

Of course this won't work terribly well if you've got more than one branch that matches <number>. It should, however, be a decent starting point.