GIT-PULL(1) Git Manual GIT-PULL(1)NAMEgit-pull - Fetch from and merge with another repository or a local
branch
SYNOPSISgit-pull <options> <repository> <refspec>...
DESCRIPTION
Runs git-fetch with the given parameters, and calls git-merge to merge
the retrieved head(s) into the current branch. With --rebase, calls
git-rebase instead of git-merge.
Note that you can use . (current directory) as the <repository> to pull
from the local repository — this is useful when merging local branches
into the current branch.
Also note that options meant for git-pull itself and underlying
git-merge must be given before the options meant for git-fetch.
OPTIONS--summary
Show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also
controlled by the configuration option merge.diffstat.
-n, --no-summary
Do not show diffstat at the end of the merge.
--no-commit
Perform the merge but pretend the merge failed and do not
autocommit, to give the user a chance to inspect and further
tweak the merge result before committing.
--commit
Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used
to override --no-commit.
--squash
Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge
happened, but do not actually make a commit or move the HEAD,
nor record $GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD to cause the next git commit
command to create a merge commit. This allows you to create a
single commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the
same as merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus).
--no-squash
Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used
to override --squash.
--no-ff
Generate a merge commit even if the merge resolved as a
fast-forward.
--ff Do not generate a merge commit if the merge resolved as a
fast-forward, only update the branch pointer. This is the
default behavior of git-merge.
-s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>
Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once to
specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is no
-s option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead
(git-merge-recursive when merging a single head,
git-merge-octopus otherwise).
--rebase
Instead of a merge, perform a rebase after fetching. If there is
a remote ref for the upstream branch, and this branch was
rebased since last fetched, the rebase uses that information to
avoid rebasing non-local changes. To make this the default for
branch <name>, set configuration branch.<name>.rebase to true.
NOTE: This is a potentially dangerous mode of operation. It
rewrites history, which does not bode well when you published
that history already. Do not use this option unless you have
read git-rebase(1) carefully.
--no-rebase
Override earlier --rebase.
-q, --quiet
Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other internally
used programs.
-v, --verbose
Be verbose.
-a, --append
Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the
existing contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old
data in .git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.
--upload-pack <upload-pack>
When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by
git-fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.
-f, --force
When git-fetch is used with <rbranch>:<lbranch> refspec, it
refuses to update the local branch <lbranch> unless the remote
branch <rbranch> it fetches is a descendant of <lbranch>. This
option overrides that check.
--no-tags
By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from
the remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This
option disables this automatic tag following.
-t, --tags
Most of the tags are fetched automatically as branch heads are
downloaded, but tags that do not point at objects reachable from
the branch heads that are being tracked will not be fetched by
this mechanism. This flag lets all tags and their associated
objects be downloaded.
-k, --keep
Keep downloaded pack.
-u, --update-head-ok
By default git-fetch refuses to update the head which
corresponds to the current branch. This flag disables the check.
This is purely for the internal use for git-pull to communicate
with git-fetch, and unless you are implementing your own
Porcelain you are not supposed to use it.
--depth=<depth>
Deepen the history of a shallow repository created by git clone
with --depth=<depth> option (see git-clone(1)) by the specified
number of commits.
<repository>
The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
operation. See the section GIT URLS below.
<refspec>
The canonical format of a <refspec> parameter is ?<src>:<dst>;
that is, an optional plus , followed by the source ref, followed
by a colon :, followed by the destination ref.
The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is
not empty string, the local ref that matches it is fast
forwarded using <src>. Again, if the optional plus + is used,
the local ref is updated even if it does not result in a fast
forward update.
Note
If the remote branch from which you want to pull is modified in
non-linear ways such as being rewound and rebased frequently,
then a pull will attempt a merge with an older version of
itself, likely conflict, and fail. It is under these conditions
that you would want to use the + sign to indicate
non-fast-forward updates will be needed. There is currently no
easy way to determine or declare that a branch will be made
available in a repository with this behavior; the pulling user
simply must know this is the expected usage pattern for a
branch.
Note
You never do your own development on branches that appear on the
right hand side of a <refspec> colon on Pull: lines; they are to
be updated by git-fetch. If you intend to do development derived
from a remote branch B, have a Pull: line to track it (i.e.
Pull: B:remote-B), and have a separate branch my-B to do your
development on top of it. The latter is created by git branch
my-B remote-B (or its equivalent git checkout -b my-B remote-B).
Run git fetch to keep track of the progress of the remote side,
and when you see something new on the remote branch, merge it
into your development branch with git pull . remote-B, while you
are on my-B branch.
Note
There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec>
directly on git-pull command line and having multiple Pull:
<refspec> lines for a <repository> and running git-pull command
without any explicit <refspec> parameters. <refspec> listed
explicitly on the command line are always merged into the
current branch after fetching. In other words, if you list more
than one remote refs, you would be making an Octopus. While
git-pull run without any explicit <refspec> parameter takes
default <refspec>s from Pull: lines, it merges only the first
<refspec> found into the current branch, after fetching all the
remote refs. This is because making an Octopus from remote refs
is rarely done, while keeping track of multiple remote heads in
one-go by fetching more than one is often useful.
Some short-cut notations are also supported.
· tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>;
it requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
· A parameter <ref> without a colon is equivalent to <ref>:
when pulling/fetching, so it merges <ref> into the current
branch without storing the remote branch anywhere locally
GIT URLS
One of the following notations can be used to name the remote
repository:
· rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
· http://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
· https://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
· git://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
· git://host.xz/~user/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz/~user/path/to/repo.git/
· ssh://[user@]host.xz/~/path/to/repo.git
SSH is the default transport protocol over the network. You can
optionally specify which user to log-in as, and an alternate,
scp-like syntax is also supported. Both syntaxes support username
expansion, as does the native git protocol, but only the former
supports port specification. The following three are identical to
the last three above, respectively:
· [user@]host.xz:/path/to/repo.git/
· [user@]host.xz:~user/path/to/repo.git/
· [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git
To sync with a local directory, you can use:
· /path/to/repo.git/
· file:///path/to/repo.git/
They are mostly equivalent, except when cloning. See git-clone(1)
for details.
If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories
and you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs
you use will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a
configuration section of the form:
[url "<actual url base>"]
insteadOf = <other url base>
For example, with this:
[url "git://git.host.xz/"]
insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
insteadOf = work:
a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will
be rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
"git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
REMOTES
In addition to the above, as a short-hand, the name of a file in
$GIT_DIR/remotes directory can be given; the named file should be in
the following format:
URL: one of the above URL format
Push: <refspec>
Pull: <refspec>
Then such a short-hand is specified in place of <repository> without
<refspec> parameters on the command line, <refspec> specified on Push:
lines or Pull: lines are used for git-push and git-fetch/git-pull,
respectively. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
additional branch mappings.
Or, equivalently, in the $GIT_DIR/config (note the use of fetch instead
of Pull:):
[remote "<remote>"]
url = <url>
push = <refspec>
fetch = <refspec>
The name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches directory can be specified as
an older notation short-hand; the named file should contain a single
line, a URL in one of the above formats, optionally followed by a hash
# and the name of remote head (URL fragment notation).
$GIT_DIR/branches/<remote> file that stores a <url> without the
fragment is equivalent to have this in the corresponding file in the
$GIT_DIR/remotes/ directory.
URL: <url>
Pull: refs/heads/master:<remote>
while having <url>#<head> is equivalent to
URL: <url>
Pull: refs/heads/<head>:<remote>
MERGE STRATEGIES
resolve
This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch and
another branch you pulled from) using 3-way merge algorithm. It
tries to carefully detect criss-cross merge ambiguities and is
considered generally safe and fast.
recursive
This can only resolve two heads using 3-way merge algorithm.
When there are more than one common ancestors that can be used
for 3-way merge, it creates a merged tree of the common
ancestors and uses that as the reference tree for the 3-way
merge. This has been reported to result in fewer merge conflicts
without causing mis-merges by tests done on actual merge commits
taken from Linux 2.6 kernel development history. Additionally
this can detect and handle merges involving renames. This is the
default merge strategy when pulling or merging one branch.
octopus
This resolves more than two-head case, but refuses to do complex
merge that needs manual resolution. It is primarily meant to be
used for bundling topic branch heads together. This is the
default merge strategy when pulling or merging more than one
branches.
ours This resolves any number of heads, but the result of the merge
is always the current branch head. It is meant to be used to
supersede old development history of side branches.
subtree
This is a modified recursive strategy. When merging trees A and
B, if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to
match the tree structure of A, instead of reading the trees at
the same level. This adjustment is also done to the common
ancestor tree.
DEFAULT BEHAVIOUR
Often people use git pull without giving any parameter. Traditionally,
this has been equivalent to saying git pull origin. However, when
configuration branch.<name>.remote is present while on branch <name>,
that value is used instead of origin.
In order to determine what URL to use to fetch from, the value of the
configuration remote.<origin>.url is consulted and if there is not any
such variable, the value on URL: line in $GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin> file
is used.
In order to determine what remote branches to fetch (and optionally
store in the tracking branches) when the command is run without any
refspec parameters on the command line, values of the configuration
variable remote.<origin>.fetch are consulted, and if there aren't any,
$GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin> file is consulted and its Pull: lines are
used. In addition to the refspec formats described in the OPTIONS
section, you can have a globbing refspec that looks like this:
refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
A globbing refspec must have a non-empty RHS (i.e. must store what were
fetched in tracking branches), and its LHS and RHS must end with /*.
The above specifies that all remote branches are tracked using tracking
branches in refs/remotes/origin/ hierarchy under the same name.
The rule to determine which remote branch to merge after fetching is a
bit involved, in order not to break backward compatibility.
If explicit refspecs were given on the command line of git pull, they
are all merged.
When no refspec was given on the command line, then git pull uses the
refspec from the configuration or $GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin>. In such
cases, the following rules apply:
1. If branch.<name>.merge configuration for the current branch <name>
exists, that is the name of the branch at the remote site that is
merged.
2. If the refspec is a globbing one, nothing is merged.
3. Otherwise the remote branch of the first refspec is merged.
EXAMPLES
git pull, git pull origin
Update the remote-tracking branches for the repository you
cloned from, then merge one of them into your current branch.
Normally the branch merged in is the HEAD of the remote
repository, but the choice is determined by the
branch.<name>.remote and branch.<name>.merge options; see
git-config(1) for details.
git pull origin next
Merge into the current branch the remote branch next; leaves a
copy of next temporarily in FETCH_HEAD, but does not update any
remote-tracking branches.
git pull . fixes enhancements
Bundle local branch fixes and enhancements on top of the current
branch, making an Octopus merge. This git pull . syntax is
equivalent to git merge.
git pull -s ours . obsolete
Merge local branch obsolete into the current branch, using ours
merge strategy.
git pull --no-commit . maint
Merge local branch maint into the current branch, but do not
make a commit automatically. This can be used when you want to
include further changes to the merge, or want to write your own
merge commit message.
You should refrain from abusing this option to sneak substantial
changes into a merge commit. Small fixups like bumping
release/version name would be acceptable.
Command line pull of multiple branches from one repository
$ git checkout master
$ git fetch origin +pu:pu maint:tmp
$ git pull . tmp
This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches pu and tmp in
the local repository by fetching from the branches
(respectively) pu and maint from the remote repository.
The pu branch will be updated even if it is does not
fast-forward; the others will not be.
The final command then merges the newly fetched tmp into master.
If you tried a pull which resulted in a complex conflicts and
would want to start over, you can recover with git-reset(1).
SEE ALSOgit-fetch(1), git-merge(1), git-config(1)AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> and Junio C Hamano
<junkio@cox.net>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Jon Loeliger, David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the
git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
GIT
Part of the git(7) suite
Git 1.5.5.2 10/21/2008 GIT-PULL(1)
