git: Switch branch and ignore any changes without committing

Question

I was working on a git branch and was ready to commit my changes, so I made a commit with a useful commit message. I then absentmindedly made minor changes to the code that

Answer 1

switching to a new branch losing changes:

git checkout -b YOUR_NEW_BRANCH_NAME --force

switching to an existing branch losing changes:

git checkout YOUR_BRANCH --force