Include git alias to clean up local branches that are no longer on remote

[martindsouza]

A common workflow is to do the following:

Note: all references of "web ui" refers to either Github or Gitlab web sites. Everything listed can also be done using CLI but most people tend to use the web ii

• (on web ui)
  • Create issue (issue-123)
  • From the issue create a branch (issue-123)
• (laptop)
  • git pull will get the remote branch
  • Do your work, commit, push to remote branch
• (on web ui)
  • merge back to master (or other active dev branch)

The problem is that on your laptop branch issue-123 still exists but is not required anymore as it doesn't exists on remote. To date this is a manual cleanup job that can become tedious when lots of issues and branches are created (especially with larger projects). Need ability to quickly and easily remove local branches that no longer exists locally.

Idea:

• Create a git alias to handle this command

• git branch -r | awk '{print $1}' | egrep -v -f /dev/fd/0 <(git branch -vv | grep origin) | awk '{print $1}' | xargs git branch -d

  • Source: https://coderwall.com/p/up1qma/git-remove-local-branches-not-on-remote

• To create the git alias automatically see: https://www.reddit.com/r/git/comments/32s8fr/how_to_store_gitconfig_as_part_of_the_repository/ and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18329621/how-to-store-a-git-config-as-part-of-the-repository

  • We could add this as an automatic function in the helper.sh so that it will always add the .gitshared file into the local .gitconfig file

• Need to think of a name for this git alias. Some ideas: https://medium.com/better-programming/useful-configs-and-aliases-for-git-and-local-development-environments-b7a0822591a6

[martindsouza]

@rimblas @neilfernandez any recommendations for alias name for this functionality?

[rimblas]

Prune?
But I wonder if it would be confused with git remote prune origin

[martindsouza]

@rimblas yea want to avoid prune as it'll conflict.

[rimblas]

In Spanish "podar"? 😬

[rimblas]

How about one word: prunelocal

[neilfernandez]

I like that. Some others: “cleanup”, “branchclean”