1git-checkout(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-checkout - Checkout and switch to a branch 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git-checkout' [-q] [-f] [[--track | --no-track] -b <new_branch> [-l]] [-m] [<branch>] 12'git-checkout' [<tree-ish>] <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; in this case you can use the --track or --no-track 22options, which will be passed to `git branch`. 23 24When <paths> are given, this command does *not* switch 25branches. It updates the named paths in the working tree from 26the index file (i.e. it runs `git-checkout-index -f -u`), or 27from a named commit. In 28this case, the `-f` and `-b` options are meaningless and giving 29either of them results in an error. <tree-ish> argument can be 30used to specify a specific tree-ish (i.e. commit, tag or tree) 31to update the index for the given paths before updating the 32working tree. 33 34 35OPTIONS 36------- 37-q:: 38 Quiet, suppress feedback messages. 39 40-f:: 41 Proceed even if the index or the working tree differs 42 from HEAD. This is used to throw away local changes. 43 44-b:: 45 Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at 46 <branch>. The new branch name must pass all checks defined 47 by linkgit:git-check-ref-format[1]. Some of these checks 48 may restrict the characters allowed in a branch name. 49 50--track:: 51 When -b is given and a branch is created off a remote branch, 52 set up configuration so that git-pull will automatically 53 retrieve data from the remote branch. Use this if you always 54 pull from the same remote branch into the new branch, or if you 55 don't want to use "git pull <repository> <refspec>" explicitly. 56 This behavior is the default. Set the 57 branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to false if you 58 want git-checkout and git-branch to always behave as if 59 '--no-track' were given. 60 61--no-track:: 62 When -b is given and a branch is created off a remote branch, 63 set up configuration so that git-pull will not retrieve data 64 from the remote branch, ignoring the branch.autosetupmerge 65 configuration variable. 66 67-l:: 68 Create the new branch's reflog. This activates recording of 69 all changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date 70 based sha1 expressions such as "<branchname>@\{yesterday}". 71 72-m:: 73 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 74 are different between the current branch and the branch to 75 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 76 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 77 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 78 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 79 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 80+ 81When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 82paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 83and mark the resolved paths with `git add` (or `git rm` if the merge 84should result in deletion of the path). 85 86<new_branch>:: 87 Name for the new branch. 88 89<branch>:: 90 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 91 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 92+ 93When this parameter names a non-branch (but still a valid commit object), 94your HEAD becomes 'detached'. 95 96 97Detached HEAD 98------------- 99 100It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is 101not at the tip of one of your branches. The most obvious 102example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release 103point, like this: 104 105------------ 106$ git checkout v2.6.18 107------------ 108 109Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to 110create a temporary branch using `-b` option, but starting from 111version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the 112current branch and directly point at the commit named by the tag 113(`v2.6.18` in the above example). 114 115You can use usual git commands while in this state. You can use 116`git-reset --hard $othercommit` to further move around, for 117example. You can make changes and create a new commit on top of 118a detached HEAD. You can even create a merge by using `git 119merge $othercommit`. 120 121The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded 122by any branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch). 123What this means is that you can discard your temporary commits 124and merges by switching back to an existing branch (e.g. `git 125checkout master`), and a later `git prune` or `git gc` would 126garbage-collect them. If you did this by mistake, you can ask 127the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g. 128 129------------ 130$ git log -g -2 HEAD 131------------ 132 133 134EXAMPLES 135-------- 136 137. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 138the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 139mistake, and gets it back from the index. 140+ 141------------ 142$ git checkout master <1> 143$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 144$ rm -f hello.c 145$ git checkout hello.c <3> 146------------ 147+ 148<1> switch branch 149<2> take out a file out of other commit 150<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 151+ 152If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 153step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 154You should instead write: 155+ 156------------ 157$ git checkout -- hello.c 158------------ 159 160. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 161branch would be done using: 162+ 163------------ 164$ git checkout mytopic 165------------ 166+ 167However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 168differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 169the above checkout would fail like this: 170+ 171------------ 172$ git checkout mytopic 173fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 174------------ 175+ 176You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 177three-way merge: 178+ 179------------ 180$ git checkout -m mytopic 181Auto-merging frotz 182------------ 183+ 184After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 185registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 186changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 187 188. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 189the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 190+ 191------------ 192$ git checkout -m mytopic 193Auto-merging frotz 194merge: warning: conflicts during merge 195ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 196fatal: merge program failed 197------------ 198+ 199At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 200the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 201files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 202`git add` as usual: 203+ 204------------ 205$ edit frotz 206$ git add frotz 207------------ 208 209 210Author 211------ 212Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 213 214Documentation 215-------------- 216Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 217 218GIT 219--- 220Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite