| git-checkout(1) |
| =============== |
| |
| NAME |
| ---- |
| git-checkout - Switch branches or restore working tree files |
| |
| SYNOPSIS |
| -------- |
| [verse] |
| 'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [-m] [<branch>] |
| 'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [-m] --detach [<branch>] |
| 'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [-m] [--detach] <commit> |
| 'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [-m] [[-b|-B|--orphan] <new_branch>] [<start_point>] |
| 'git checkout' [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>] [--] <paths>... |
| 'git checkout' [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>... |
| 'git checkout' (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<paths>...] |
| |
| DESCRIPTION |
| ----------- |
| Updates files in the working tree to match the version in the index |
| or the specified tree. If no paths are given, 'git checkout' will |
| also update `HEAD` to set the specified branch as the current |
| branch. |
| |
| 'git checkout' <branch>:: |
| To prepare for working on <branch>, switch to it by updating |
| the index and the files in the working tree, and by pointing |
| HEAD at the branch. Local modifications to the files in the |
| working tree are kept, so that they can be committed to the |
| <branch>. |
| + |
| If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in |
| exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name, treat as |
| equivalent to |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch> |
| ------------ |
| + |
| You could omit <branch>, in which case the command degenerates to |
| "check out the current branch", which is a glorified no-op with |
| rather expensive side-effects to show only the tracking information, |
| if exists, for the current branch. |
| |
| 'git checkout' -b|-B <new_branch> [<start point>]:: |
| |
| Specifying `-b` causes a new branch to be created as if |
| linkgit:git-branch[1] were called and then checked out. In |
| this case you can use the `--track` or `--no-track` options, |
| which will be passed to 'git branch'. As a convenience, |
| `--track` without `-b` implies branch creation; see the |
| description of `--track` below. |
| + |
| If `-B` is given, <new_branch> is created if it doesn't exist; otherwise, it |
| is reset. This is the transactional equivalent of |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git branch -f <branch> [<start point>] |
| $ git checkout <branch> |
| ------------ |
| + |
| that is to say, the branch is not reset/created unless "git checkout" is |
| successful. |
| |
| 'git checkout' --detach [<branch>]:: |
| 'git checkout' [--detach] <commit>:: |
| |
| Prepare to work on top of <commit>, by detaching HEAD at it |
| (see "DETACHED HEAD" section), and updating the index and the |
| files in the working tree. Local modifications to the files |
| in the working tree are kept, so that the resulting working |
| tree will be the state recorded in the commit plus the local |
| modifications. |
| + |
| When the <commit> argument is a branch name, the `--detach` option can |
| be used to detach HEAD at the tip of the branch (`git checkout |
| <branch>` would check out that branch without detaching HEAD). |
| + |
| Omitting <branch> detaches HEAD at the tip of the current branch. |
| |
| 'git checkout' [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>...:: |
| |
| Overwrite paths in the working tree by replacing with the |
| contents in the index or in the <tree-ish> (most often a |
| commit). When a <tree-ish> is given, the paths that |
| match the <pathspec> are updated both in the index and in |
| the working tree. |
| + |
| The index may contain unmerged entries because of a previous failed merge. |
| By default, if you try to check out such an entry from the index, the |
| checkout operation will fail and nothing will be checked out. |
| Using `-f` will ignore these unmerged entries. The contents from a |
| specific side of the merge can be checked out of the index by |
| using `--ours` or `--theirs`. With `-m`, changes made to the working tree |
| file can be discarded to re-create the original conflicted merge result. |
| |
| 'git checkout' (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]:: |
| This is similar to the "check out paths to the working tree |
| from either the index or from a tree-ish" mode described |
| above, but lets you use the interactive interface to show |
| the "diff" output and choose which hunks to use in the |
| result. See below for the description of `--patch` option. |
| |
| |
| OPTIONS |
| ------- |
| -q:: |
| --quiet:: |
| Quiet, suppress feedback messages. |
| |
| --[no-]progress:: |
| Progress status is reported on the standard error stream |
| by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless `--quiet` |
| is specified. This flag enables progress reporting even if not |
| attached to a terminal, regardless of `--quiet`. |
| |
| -f:: |
| --force:: |
| When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the |
| working tree differs from HEAD. This is used to throw away |
| local changes. |
| + |
| When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged |
| entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored. |
| |
| --ours:: |
| --theirs:: |
| When checking out paths from the index, check out stage #2 |
| ('ours') or #3 ('theirs') for unmerged paths. |
| + |
| Note that during `git rebase` and `git pull --rebase`, 'ours' and |
| 'theirs' may appear swapped; `--ours` gives the version from the |
| branch the changes are rebased onto, while `--theirs` gives the |
| version from the branch that holds your work that is being rebased. |
| + |
| This is because `rebase` is used in a workflow that treats the |
| history at the remote as the shared canonical one, and treats the |
| work done on the branch you are rebasing as the third-party work to |
| be integrated, and you are temporarily assuming the role of the |
| keeper of the canonical history during the rebase. As the keeper of |
| the canonical history, you need to view the history from the remote |
| as `ours` (i.e. "our shared canonical history"), while what you did |
| on your side branch as `theirs` (i.e. "one contributor's work on top |
| of it"). |
| |
| -b <new_branch>:: |
| Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at |
| <start_point>; see linkgit:git-branch[1] for details. |
| |
| -B <new_branch>:: |
| Creates the branch <new_branch> and start it at <start_point>; |
| if it already exists, then reset it to <start_point>. This is |
| equivalent to running "git branch" with "-f"; see |
| linkgit:git-branch[1] for details. |
| |
| -t:: |
| --track:: |
| When creating a new branch, set up "upstream" configuration. See |
| "--track" in linkgit:git-branch[1] for details. |
| + |
| If no `-b` option is given, the name of the new branch will be |
| derived from the remote-tracking branch, by looking at the local part of |
| the refspec configured for the corresponding remote, and then stripping |
| the initial part up to the "*". |
| This would tell us to use "hack" as the local branch when branching |
| off of "origin/hack" (or "remotes/origin/hack", or even |
| "refs/remotes/origin/hack"). If the given name has no slash, or the above |
| guessing results in an empty name, the guessing is aborted. You can |
| explicitly give a name with `-b` in such a case. |
| |
| --no-track:: |
| Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the |
| branch.autoSetupMerge configuration variable is true. |
| |
| -l:: |
| Create the new branch's reflog; see linkgit:git-branch[1] for |
| details. |
| |
| --detach:: |
| Rather than checking out a branch to work on it, check out a |
| commit for inspection and discardable experiments. |
| This is the default behavior of "git checkout <commit>" when |
| <commit> is not a branch name. See the "DETACHED HEAD" section |
| below for details. |
| |
| --orphan <new_branch>:: |
| Create a new 'orphan' branch, named <new_branch>, started from |
| <start_point> and switch to it. The first commit made on this |
| new branch will have no parents and it will be the root of a new |
| history totally disconnected from all the other branches and |
| commits. |
| + |
| The index and the working tree are adjusted as if you had previously run |
| "git checkout <start_point>". This allows you to start a new history |
| that records a set of paths similar to <start_point> by easily running |
| "git commit -a" to make the root commit. |
| + |
| This can be useful when you want to publish the tree from a commit |
| without exposing its full history. You might want to do this to publish |
| an open source branch of a project whose current tree is "clean", but |
| whose full history contains proprietary or otherwise encumbered bits of |
| code. |
| + |
| If you want to start a disconnected history that records a set of paths |
| that is totally different from the one of <start_point>, then you should |
| clear the index and the working tree right after creating the orphan |
| branch by running "git rm -rf ." from the top level of the working tree. |
| Afterwards you will be ready to prepare your new files, repopulating the |
| working tree, by copying them from elsewhere, extracting a tarball, etc. |
| |
| --ignore-skip-worktree-bits:: |
| In sparse checkout mode, `git checkout -- <paths>` would |
| update only entries matched by <paths> and sparse patterns |
| in $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout. This option ignores |
| the sparse patterns and adds back any files in <paths>. |
| |
| -m:: |
| --merge:: |
| When switching branches, |
| if you have local modifications to one or more files that |
| are different between the current branch and the branch to |
| which you are switching, the command refuses to switch |
| branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. |
| However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current |
| branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch |
| is done, and you will be on the new branch. |
| + |
| When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting |
| paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts |
| and mark the resolved paths with `git add` (or `git rm` if the merge |
| should result in deletion of the path). |
| + |
| When checking out paths from the index, this option lets you recreate |
| the conflicted merge in the specified paths. |
| |
| --conflict=<style>:: |
| The same as --merge option above, but changes the way the |
| conflicting hunks are presented, overriding the |
| merge.conflictStyle configuration variable. Possible values are |
| "merge" (default) and "diff3" (in addition to what is shown by |
| "merge" style, shows the original contents). |
| |
| -p:: |
| --patch:: |
| Interactively select hunks in the difference between the |
| <tree-ish> (or the index, if unspecified) and the working |
| tree. The chosen hunks are then applied in reverse to the |
| working tree (and if a <tree-ish> was specified, the index). |
| + |
| This means that you can use `git checkout -p` to selectively discard |
| edits from your current working tree. See the ``Interactive Mode'' |
| section of linkgit:git-add[1] to learn how to operate the `--patch` mode. |
| |
| --ignore-other-worktrees:: |
| `git checkout` refuses when the wanted ref is already checked |
| out by another worktree. This option makes it check the ref |
| out anyway. In other words, the ref can be held by more than one |
| worktree. |
| |
| --[no-]recurse-submodules:: |
| Using --recurse-submodules will update the content of all initialized |
| submodules according to the commit recorded in the superproject. If |
| local modifications in a submodule would be overwritten the checkout |
| will fail unless `-f` is used. If nothing (or --no-recurse-submodules) |
| is used, the work trees of submodules will not be updated. |
| Just like linkgit:git-submodule[1], this will detach the |
| submodules HEAD. |
| |
| <branch>:: |
| Branch to checkout; if it refers to a branch (i.e., a name that, |
| when prepended with "refs/heads/", is a valid ref), then that |
| branch is checked out. Otherwise, if it refers to a valid |
| commit, your HEAD becomes "detached" and you are no longer on |
| any branch (see below for details). |
| + |
| You can use the `"@{-N}"` syntax to refer to the N-th last |
| branch/commit checked out using "git checkout" operation. You may |
| also specify `-` which is synonymous to `"@{-1}`. |
| + |
| As a special case, you may use `"A...B"` as a shortcut for the |
| merge base of `A` and `B` if there is exactly one merge base. You can |
| leave out at most one of `A` and `B`, in which case it defaults to `HEAD`. |
| |
| <new_branch>:: |
| Name for the new branch. |
| |
| <start_point>:: |
| The name of a commit at which to start the new branch; see |
| linkgit:git-branch[1] for details. Defaults to HEAD. |
| |
| <tree-ish>:: |
| Tree to checkout from (when paths are given). If not specified, |
| the index will be used. |
| |
| |
| |
| DETACHED HEAD |
| ------------- |
| HEAD normally refers to a named branch (e.g. 'master'). Meanwhile, each |
| branch refers to a specific commit. Let's look at a repo with three |
| commits, one of them tagged, and with branch 'master' checked out: |
| |
| ------------ |
| HEAD (refers to branch 'master') |
| | |
| v |
| a---b---c branch 'master' (refers to commit 'c') |
| ^ |
| | |
| tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b') |
| ------------ |
| |
| When a commit is created in this state, the branch is updated to refer to |
| the new commit. Specifically, 'git commit' creates a new commit 'd', whose |
| parent is commit 'c', and then updates branch 'master' to refer to new |
| commit 'd'. HEAD still refers to branch 'master' and so indirectly now refers |
| to commit 'd': |
| |
| ------------ |
| $ edit; git add; git commit |
| |
| HEAD (refers to branch 'master') |
| | |
| v |
| a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd') |
| ^ |
| | |
| tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b') |
| ------------ |
| |
| It is sometimes useful to be able to checkout a commit that is not at |
| the tip of any named branch, or even to create a new commit that is not |
| referenced by a named branch. Let's look at what happens when we |
| checkout commit 'b' (here we show two ways this may be done): |
| |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout v2.0 # or |
| $ git checkout master^^ |
| |
| HEAD (refers to commit 'b') |
| | |
| v |
| a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd') |
| ^ |
| | |
| tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b') |
| ------------ |
| |
| Notice that regardless of which checkout command we use, HEAD now refers |
| directly to commit 'b'. This is known as being in detached HEAD state. |
| It means simply that HEAD refers to a specific commit, as opposed to |
| referring to a named branch. Let's see what happens when we create a commit: |
| |
| ------------ |
| $ edit; git add; git commit |
| |
| HEAD (refers to commit 'e') |
| | |
| v |
| e |
| / |
| a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd') |
| ^ |
| | |
| tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b') |
| ------------ |
| |
| There is now a new commit 'e', but it is referenced only by HEAD. We can |
| of course add yet another commit in this state: |
| |
| ------------ |
| $ edit; git add; git commit |
| |
| HEAD (refers to commit 'f') |
| | |
| v |
| e---f |
| / |
| a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd') |
| ^ |
| | |
| tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b') |
| ------------ |
| |
| In fact, we can perform all the normal Git operations. But, let's look |
| at what happens when we then checkout master: |
| |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout master |
| |
| HEAD (refers to branch 'master') |
| e---f | |
| / v |
| a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd') |
| ^ |
| | |
| tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b') |
| ------------ |
| |
| It is important to realize that at this point nothing refers to commit |
| 'f'. Eventually commit 'f' (and by extension commit 'e') will be deleted |
| by the routine Git garbage collection process, unless we create a reference |
| before that happens. If we have not yet moved away from commit 'f', |
| any of these will create a reference to it: |
| |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout -b foo <1> |
| $ git branch foo <2> |
| $ git tag foo <3> |
| ------------ |
| |
| <1> creates a new branch 'foo', which refers to commit 'f', and then |
| updates HEAD to refer to branch 'foo'. In other words, we'll no longer |
| be in detached HEAD state after this command. |
| |
| <2> similarly creates a new branch 'foo', which refers to commit 'f', |
| but leaves HEAD detached. |
| |
| <3> creates a new tag 'foo', which refers to commit 'f', |
| leaving HEAD detached. |
| |
| If we have moved away from commit 'f', then we must first recover its object |
| name (typically by using git reflog), and then we can create a reference to |
| it. For example, to see the last two commits to which HEAD referred, we |
| can use either of these commands: |
| |
| ------------ |
| $ git reflog -2 HEAD # or |
| $ git log -g -2 HEAD |
| ------------ |
| |
| ARGUMENT DISAMBIGUATION |
| ----------------------- |
| |
| When there is only one argument given and it is not `--` (e.g. "git |
| checkout abc"), and when the argument is both a valid `<tree-ish>` |
| (e.g. a branch "abc" exists) and a valid `<pathspec>` (e.g. a file |
| or a directory whose name is "abc" exists), Git would usually ask |
| you to disambiguate. Because checking out a branch is so common an |
| operation, however, "git checkout abc" takes "abc" as a `<tree-ish>` |
| in such a situation. Use `git checkout -- <pathspec>` if you want |
| to checkout these paths out of the index. |
| |
| EXAMPLES |
| -------- |
| |
| . The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts |
| the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by |
| mistake, and gets it back from the index. |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout master <1> |
| $ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> |
| $ rm -f hello.c |
| $ git checkout hello.c <3> |
| ------------ |
| + |
| <1> switch branch |
| <2> take a file out of another commit |
| <3> restore hello.c from the index |
| + |
| If you want to check out _all_ C source files out of the index, |
| you can say |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout -- '*.c' |
| ------------ |
| + |
| Note the quotes around `*.c`. The file `hello.c` will also be |
| checked out, even though it is no longer in the working tree, |
| because the file globbing is used to match entries in the index |
| (not in the working tree by the shell). |
| + |
| If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this |
| step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. |
| You should instead write: |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout -- hello.c |
| ------------ |
| |
| . After working in the wrong branch, switching to the correct |
| branch would be done using: |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout mytopic |
| ------------ |
| + |
| However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may |
| differ in files that you have modified locally, in which case |
| the above checkout would fail like this: |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout mytopic |
| error: You have local changes to 'frotz'; not switching branches. |
| ------------ |
| + |
| You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a |
| three-way merge: |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout -m mytopic |
| Auto-merging frotz |
| ------------ |
| + |
| After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ |
| registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what |
| changes you made since the tip of the new branch. |
| |
| . When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with |
| the `-m` option, you would see something like this: |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ git checkout -m mytopic |
| Auto-merging frotz |
| ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz |
| fatal: merge program failed |
| ------------ |
| + |
| At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in |
| the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted |
| files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with |
| `git add` as usual: |
| + |
| ------------ |
| $ edit frotz |
| $ git add frotz |
| ------------ |
| |
| GIT |
| --- |
| Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite |