A handy utility to quickly switch Git branches based on a subsection of its name. e.g. `cob ast` will switch to master.

cob.sh

# shortcut to invoke git
g() { "$(which git)" "$@" ;}

# colors for use in normal output with `echo -e`
NORMAL_GREEN="\033[0;32m"
NORMAL_YELLOW="\033[0;33m"
NORMAL_RED="\033[0;31m"
NORMAL_CLEAR="\033[0;00m"

# checkout a branch given a unique regex pattern
cob() {
  if [ -z $1 ]; then
    echo "Usage: cob <pattern to match git branch>"
    echo "Switch to a git branch based on a greppable pattern. Must specify an umambiguous pattern."
    return 1
  fi

  local pattern=$1
  local branchMatches=$(g branch | grep $pattern)

  # cannot proceed with more than one match
  local numMatches=$(echo "$branchMatches" | wc -l)
  if [ $numMatches != 1 ]; then
    echo -e "${NORMAL_YELLOW}Error: ambiguous pattern. The following branches matched:${NORMAL_CLEAR}"
    echo "$branchMatches"
    return 2
  fi

  # cannot proceed with no matches; we don't want to just run `git checkout`
  if [ -z "$branchMatches" ]; then
    echo -e "${NORMAL_RED}No matching branches were found. Available branches:${NORMAL_CLEAR}"
    g branch
    return 3
  fi

  trimmedBranch=$(echo "$branchMatches" | tr -d '[:space:]')
  echo -e "${NORMAL_GREEN}Switching to branch ${trimmedBranch}${NORMAL_CLEAR}"
  g checkout $trimmedBranch
}