Cannot delete a Branch that doesn't exist?

Question

Check out this screenshot...I just queried the branches and it shows that branch 'different-oil' is in the list of branches...then when I tried "del, rm, or checkout" the branch, it says the branch did not match...here's the screenshot:

What happened is that I deleted the branch from github once I merged the new master. Then in turn, I pulled the new master from github and merged. All is the same. How can I delete this branch that git is saying doesn't exist? I also relogged in:

Any Ideas...?

Answer 1

As Thomas pointed out in the comments, del is not a valid bash command and also not a commad related to git, which is the main error.

To delete a local branch you can use git branch -d different-oil.

To delete a remote branch you can use git push origin --delete different-oil or git push origin :different_oil.

However, as you also tagged github, you can easily delete the branch in the webinterface.

Related question: How do I delete a Git branch both locally and remotely?

Further information: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Branch-Management

Answer 2

Here's my answer...after reading another related post about deleting local branches, using the git branch -d, this command did let me know that on the local machine the merge was incomplete. This doesn't explain why it was telling me that the branch could not be found, but once I merged, then, as you can see below, the branch was deletable with the "git branch -d" command. Thanks to those who assisted.

Answer 3

Basically you are running shell commands instead of git commands. You should prefix git-related commands with git. Take a look at git --help and git branch --help.

To delete that branch you have to run git branch -d different-oil.