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gitintellij-ideagit-stash
Daniel Compton
Daniel Compton

Reputation: 14549

What is the difference between IntelliJ's Shelve and Git stash?

IntelliJ supports git stashes as well as its own built in shelve command. These seem to be almost identical in purpose and utility. What is the difference between them?

Upvotes: 160

Views: 76715

Answers (4)

Sagar
Sagar

Reputation: 1335

Here is what Documentation Says

Stashing changes is very similar to shelving. The only difference is in the way patches are generated and applied. Stashes are generated by Git, and can be applied from within IntelliJ IDEA, or outside it. Patches with shelved changes are generated by IntelliJ IDEA and are also applied through the IDE. Also, stashing involves all uncommitted changes, while when you put changes to a shelf, you can select some of the local changes instead of shelving them all.

Upvotes: 3

riyasvaliya
riyasvaliya

Reputation: 825

One distinct advantage that Intellij's Shelve has over plain Git's stash is that using Shelve, you can save changes belonging to multiple repos in one changelist. Using stash, you would need to stash/unstash in each repo individually. This is very useful in a large project with multiple modules (each having its own repo) where a particular feature work may cut across multiple modules (and therefore multiple repos)

Upvotes: 42

id.bobr
id.bobr

Reputation: 1000

They are pretty similar except:

  • You can't use shelve outside IDE, because it is Intellij's feature.
  • Git stash works only with entire working directory and index. IntelliJ's shelve can work with individual files and changelists (another IntelliJ's feature). As you can see, for example, here, sometimes it is necessary.
  • Idea has better built-in support for shelve. Working with git stash is more straightforward. In particular, you can shelve\unshelve your changes or review shelved files from version control tool window.

Also, IMHO, shelve works slightly faster, especially in a big project, when lots of files were changed.

See the documentation for more info.

Upvotes: 83

Daniel Compton
Daniel Compton

Reputation: 14549

From the IntelliJ documentation:

In the Git integration, in addition to shelving and unshelving, "stashing" and "unstashing" are supported respectively. These features have much in common, the only difference is in the way patches are generated and applied.

  • Patches with stashed changes are generated by Git itself. To apply them later, you do not need IntelliJ IDEA.
  • Patches with shelved changes are generated by IntelliJ IDEA. Normally, they are also applied through the IDE. Applying shelved changes outside IntelliJ IDEA is also possible but requires additional steps.

Upvotes: 98

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