1git-checkout(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-checkout - Checkout and switch to a branch 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git-checkout' [-f] [-b <new_branch>] [-m] [<branch>] 12'git-checkout' [-m] [<branch>] <paths>... 13 14DESCRIPTION 15----------- 16 17When <paths> are not given, this command switches branches by 18updating the index and working tree to reflect the specified 19branch, <branch>, and updating HEAD to be <branch> or, if 20specified, <new_branch>. Using -b will cause <new_branch> to 21be created. 22 23When <paths> are given, this command does *not* switch 24branches. It updates the named paths in the working tree from 25the index file (i.e. it runs `git-checkout-index -f -u`). In 26this case, `-f` and `-b` options are meaningless and giving 27either of them results in an error. <branch> argument can be 28used to specify a specific tree-ish to update the index for the 29given paths before updating the working tree. 30 31 32OPTIONS 33------- 34-f:: 35 Force a re-read of everything. 36 37-b:: 38 Create a new branch and start it at <branch>. 39 40-m:: 41 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 42 are different between the current branch and the branch to 43 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 44 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 45 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 46 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 47 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 48+ 49When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 50paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 51and mark the resolved paths with `git update-index`. 52 53<new_branch>:: 54 Name for the new branch. 55 56<branch>:: 57 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 58 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 59 60 61EXAMPLES 62-------- 63 64. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 65the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 66mistake, and gets it back from the index. 67+ 68------------ 69$ git checkout master <1> 70$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 71$ rm -f hello.c 72$ git checkout hello.c <3> 73------------ 74+ 75<1> switch branch 76<2> take out a file out of other commit 77<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 78+ 79If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 80step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 81You should instead write: 82+ 83------------ 84$ git checkout -- hello.c 85------------ 86 87. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 88branch would be done using: 89+ 90------------ 91$ git checkout mytopic 92------------ 93+ 94However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 95differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 96the above checkout would fail like this: 97+ 98------------ 99$ git checkout mytopic 100fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 101------------ 102+ 103You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 104three-way merge: 105+ 106------------ 107$ git checkout -m mytopic 108Auto-merging frotz 109------------ 110+ 111After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 112registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 113changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 114 115. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 116the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 117+ 118------------ 119$ git checkout -m mytopic 120Auto-merging frotz 121merge: warning: conflicts during merge 122ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 123fatal: merge program failed 124------------ 125+ 126At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 127the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 128files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 129`git update-index` as usual: 130+ 131------------ 132$ edit frotz 133$ git update-index frotz 134------------ 135 136 137Author 138------ 139Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 140 141Documentation 142-------------- 143Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 144 145GIT 146--- 147Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite 148