1git-checkout(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-checkout - Checkout a branch or paths to the working tree 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 24As a convenience, --track will default to create a branch whose 25name is constructed from the specified branch name by stripping 26the first namespace level. 27 28When <paths> are given, this command does *not* switch 29branches. It updates the named paths in the working tree from 30the index file (i.e. it runs `git checkout-index -f -u`), or 31from a named commit. In 32this case, the `-f` and `-b` options are meaningless and giving 33either of them results in an error. <tree-ish> argument can be 34used to specify a specific tree-ish (i.e. commit, tag or tree) 35to update the index for the given paths before updating the 36working tree. 37 38 39OPTIONS 40------- 41-q:: 42 Quiet, suppress feedback messages. 43 44-f:: 45 Proceed even if the index or the working tree differs 46 from HEAD. This is used to throw away local changes. 47 48-b:: 49 Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at 50 <branch>. The new branch name must pass all checks defined 51 by linkgit:git-check-ref-format[1]. Some of these checks 52 may restrict the characters allowed in a branch name. 53 54-t:: 55--track:: 56 When creating a new branch, set up configuration so that 'git-pull' 57 will automatically retrieve data from the start point, which must be 58 a branch. Use this if you always pull from the same upstream branch 59 into the new branch, and if you don't want to use "git pull 60 <repository> <refspec>" explicitly. This behavior is the default 61 when the start point is a remote branch. Set the 62 branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to `false` if you want 63 'git-checkout' and 'git-branch' to always behave as if '--no-track' were 64 given. Set it to `always` if you want this behavior when the 65 start-point is either a local or remote branch. 66+ 67If no '-b' option was given, a name will be made up for you, by stripping 68the part up to the first slash of the tracked branch. For example, if you 69called 'git checkout --track origin/next', the branch name will be 'next'. 70 71--no-track:: 72 Ignore the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable. 73 74-l:: 75 Create the new branch's reflog. This activates recording of 76 all changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date 77 based sha1 expressions such as "<branchname>@\{yesterday}". 78 79-m:: 80 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 81 are different between the current branch and the branch to 82 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 83 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 84 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 85 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 86 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 87+ 88When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 89paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 90and mark the resolved paths with `git add` (or `git rm` if the merge 91should result in deletion of the path). 92 93<new_branch>:: 94 Name for the new branch. 95 96<branch>:: 97 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 98 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 99+ 100When this parameter names a non-branch (but still a valid commit object), 101your HEAD becomes 'detached'. 102 103 104Detached HEAD 105------------- 106 107It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is 108not at the tip of one of your branches. The most obvious 109example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release 110point, like this: 111 112------------ 113$ git checkout v2.6.18 114------------ 115 116Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to 117create a temporary branch using `-b` option, but starting from 118version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the 119current branch and directly point at the commit named by the tag 120(`v2.6.18` in the above example). 121 122You can use usual git commands while in this state. You can use 123`git reset --hard $othercommit` to further move around, for 124example. You can make changes and create a new commit on top of 125a detached HEAD. You can even create a merge by using `git 126merge $othercommit`. 127 128The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded 129by any branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch). 130What this means is that you can discard your temporary commits 131and merges by switching back to an existing branch (e.g. `git 132checkout master`), and a later `git prune` or `git gc` would 133garbage-collect them. If you did this by mistake, you can ask 134the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g. 135 136------------ 137$ git log -g -2 HEAD 138------------ 139 140 141EXAMPLES 142-------- 143 144. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 145the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 146mistake, and gets it back from the index. 147+ 148------------ 149$ git checkout master <1> 150$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 151$ rm -f hello.c 152$ git checkout hello.c <3> 153------------ 154+ 155<1> switch branch 156<2> take out a file out of other commit 157<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 158+ 159If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 160step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 161You should instead write: 162+ 163------------ 164$ git checkout -- hello.c 165------------ 166 167. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 168branch would be done using: 169+ 170------------ 171$ git checkout mytopic 172------------ 173+ 174However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 175differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 176the above checkout would fail like this: 177+ 178------------ 179$ git checkout mytopic 180fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 181------------ 182+ 183You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 184three-way merge: 185+ 186------------ 187$ git checkout -m mytopic 188Auto-merging frotz 189------------ 190+ 191After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 192registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 193changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 194 195. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 196the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 197+ 198------------ 199$ git checkout -m mytopic 200Auto-merging frotz 201merge: warning: conflicts during merge 202ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 203fatal: merge program failed 204------------ 205+ 206At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 207the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 208files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 209`git add` as usual: 210+ 211------------ 212$ edit frotz 213$ git add frotz 214------------ 215 216 217Author 218------ 219Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 220 221Documentation 222-------------- 223Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 224 225GIT 226--- 227Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite