1<repository>:: 2 The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch 3 or pull operation. This parameter can be either a URL 4 (see the section <<URLS,GIT URLS>> below) or the name 5 of a remote (see the section <<REMOTES,REMOTES>> below). 6 7ifndef::git-pull[] 8<group>:: 9 A name referring to a list of repositories as the value 10 of remotes.<group> in the configuration file. 11 (See linkgit:git-config[1]). 12endif::git-pull[] 13 14<refspec>:: 15 The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus 16 `+`, followed by the source ref <src>, followed 17 by a colon `:`, followed by the destination ref <dst>. 18+ 19The remote ref that matches <src> 20is fetched, and if <dst> is not empty string, the local 21ref that matches it is fast-forwarded using <src>. 22If the optional plus `+` is used, the local ref 23is updated even if it does not result in a fast-forward 24update. 25+ 26[NOTE] 27When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to 28be rewound and rebased regularly, it is expected that 29its new tip will not be descendant of its previous tip 30(as stored in your remote-tracking branch the last time 31you fetched). You would want 32to use the `+` sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates 33will be needed for such branches. There is no way to 34determine or declare that a branch will be made available 35in a repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply 36must know this is the expected usage pattern for a branch. 37+ 38[NOTE] 39You never do your own development on branches that appear 40on the right hand side of a <refspec> colon on `Pull:` lines; 41they are to be updated by 'git fetch'. If you intend to do 42development derived from a remote branch `B`, have a `Pull:` 43line to track it (i.e. `Pull: B:remote-B`), and have a separate 44branch `my-B` to do your development on top of it. The latter 45is created by `git branch my-B remote-B` (or its equivalent `git 46checkout -b my-B remote-B`). Run `git fetch` to keep track of 47the progress of the remote side, and when you see something new 48on the remote branch, merge it into your development branch with 49`git pull . remote-B`, while you are on `my-B` branch. 50+ 51[NOTE] 52There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec> 53directly on 'git pull' command line and having multiple 54`Pull:` <refspec> lines for a <repository> and running 55'git pull' command without any explicit <refspec> parameters. 56<refspec> listed explicitly on the command line are always 57merged into the current branch after fetching. In other words, 58if you list more than one remote refs, you would be making 59an Octopus. While 'git pull' run without any explicit <refspec> 60parameter takes default <refspec>s from `Pull:` lines, it 61merges only the first <refspec> found into the current branch, 62after fetching all the remote refs. This is because making an 63Octopus from remote refs is rarely done, while keeping track 64of multiple remote heads in one-go by fetching more than one 65is often useful. 66+ 67Some short-cut notations are also supported. 68+ 69* `tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`; 70 it requests fetching everything up to the given tag. 71ifndef::git-pull[] 72* A parameter <ref> without a colon fetches that ref into FETCH_HEAD, 73endif::git-pull[] 74ifdef::git-pull[] 75* A parameter <ref> without a colon merges <ref> into the current 76 branch, 77endif::git-pull[] 78 and updates the remote-tracking branches (if any).