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

Answer 2

If you want to discard the changes,

git checkout -- <file>
git checkout branch

If you want to keep the changes,

git stash save
git checkout branch
git stash pop

Answer 3

Note that if you've merged remote branches or have local commits and want to go back to the remote HEAD you must do:

git reset --hard origin/HEAD

HEAD alone will only refer to the local commit/merge -- several times I have forgotten that when resetting and end up with "your repository is X commits ahead.." when I fully intended to nuke ALL changes/commits and return to the remote branch.