Bash: Git search and checkout branches function fbr

This is a handy bash function you can put in your bash_profile or zshrc. It searches through previous branches you have worked on by piping the response of git branch to grep and searching for param $1 of function.

From there it displays a list of branch results and gives you the option to checkout whichever one you want using select.

function fbr(){
    if branch=$(git symbolic-ref --short -q HEAD)
    then
        if [ -z "$1" ]
        then
            echo "Please add a search string"
        else
            result=($(git branch | grep $1))

            if [[ ${#result[@]} > 0 ]]
            then
                echo ${#result[@]} branches found. Select checkout branch:
                select opt in "${result[@]}"
                do
                    if [[ $result[$REPLY] ]]
                    then
                    git checkout $result[$REPLY]
                    break;
                    else
                    echo "Not $REPLY is not an option"
                    fi
                done
            else
                echo "No results found";
            fi
        fi
    else
        echo "Not a branch";
    fi
}

Make sure to save your bash_profile with

source ~/.bash_profile

Now if you run:

fbr (INSERT SEARCH STRING)

You can get a list of branch options to checkout that contain your search string. select the branch to checkout by inputting its number in the results

Thanks for reading, hope this speeds your branch swicthing!