How can I overwrite, not merge, one remote branch

Question

I have two branches. Staging and Beta. Staging has code in it ( including files ), that I do not want at all. How can I make Beta completely overwrite Staging, so that none of those files or code are merged from Staging into Beta.

I see some people recommend doing this :

git checkout staging
git merge -s ours beta

But I don't believe the pre-existing files would be a "code conflict" and therefore would not be removed. Am I wrong? If I'm right, how would I accomplish this?

Answer 1

If you don't care about the old history of staging, you can just recreate it:

git checkout beta
git branch -f staging

If you do care about the old history of staging, then things get more fun:

git checkout staging        # First, merge beta into staging so we have
git merge -s theirs beta    # a merge commit to work with.

git checkout beta           # Then, flip back to beta's version of the files

git reset --soft staging    # Then we go back to the merge commit SHA, but keep 
                            # the actual files and index as they were in beta

git commit --amend          # Finally, update the merge commit to match the
                            # files and index as they were in beta.

Answer 2

You can simple delete staging and re-create it based on beta:

git branch -D staging
git checkout beta
git branch staging

Answer 3

I suggest you just rename it in case you change your mind.

git branch -m staging staging_oops
git checkout beta
git branch staging

If you really can't stand having that extra branch around:

git branch -D staging_oops

Answer 4

If the history of staging is not going to be an issue, you can simply do this.

git checkout staging 
git reset --hard beta

Just remember the history of staging will be gone after the above command and staging will have the work of your beta branch.