Move Working Code Changes to new GIT Branch without Stashing

If you are like me, you will probably find your self working on the "master" branch of your project most of the time (when you are the sole contributor on a project of course...). Often I start working on an issue that has been raised by my users confident that I can fix it quickly in one go. But I soon discover that it is far more complicated than initially thought and regret not creating a new "issue branch" to work off (so my master branch is clean and the commits are atomic to features/issues I'm working on)

I often face this workflow problem when I'm working on my open source project React Stepzilla for example.

Here is what I do now when I come across this GIT workflow problem:

• Locally on my computer I've checked out "master" and I'm working on a new github issue with id 27 (for e.g)

• I modify multiple files trying to fix the issue

• I then discover that I'm not going to be able to complete the fix easily and regret not creating a new issue branch "issue-27"

• Running "git status" shows me all my changes so far to the "master" branch

• I then run "git checkout -b issue-27". This will create a new branch called issue-27 with all your local changes.

• I'm now in a new local branch called "issue-27"

• I continue my work and stop for the moment, I then add my code via "git add -A" and commit it using "git commit -m 'Working on #27'" (putting the #27 here makes the code change referenced in the github issue, which is nice...)

• I then push the new branch to origin and track it "git push -u origin issue-27"

• If you checkout master now and run "git status" you will notice that the changes are not longer "pending" here and your master is clean.

• Once you are done with your work on the "issue-27" branch, then your can merge the changes into "master" via a github "pull request" or locally and then delete the "issue-27" branch.

Hope this helps you guys, also here is a good stackoverflow that tell your more.