git: Switch branch and ignore any changes without committing

Question

I was working on a git branch and was ready to commit my changes, so I made a commit with a useful commit message. I then absentmindedly made minor changes to the code that are not worth keeping. I now want to change branches, but git gives me,

error: You have local changes to "X"; cannot switch branches.

I thought that I could change branches without committing. If so, how can I set this up? If not, how do I get out of this problem? I want to ignore the minor changes without committing and just change branches.

Answer 1

If you want to discard the changes,

git checkout -- <file>

git checkout branch

If you want to keep the changes,

git stash save

git checkout branch

git stash pop

Also, check out this Git Tutorial to know more.