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 The colon can be omitted when <dst> is empty. 19+ 20`tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`; 21it requests fetching everything up to the given tag. 22+ 23The remote ref that matches <src> 24is fetched, and if <dst> is not empty string, the local 25ref that matches it is fast-forwarded using <src>. 26If the optional plus `+` is used, the local ref 27is updated even if it does not result in a fast-forward 28update. 29+ 30[NOTE] 31When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to 32be rewound and rebased regularly, it is expected that 33its new tip will not be descendant of its previous tip 34(as stored in your remote-tracking branch the last time 35you fetched). You would want 36to use the `+` sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates 37will be needed for such branches. There is no way to 38determine or declare that a branch will be made available 39in a repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply 40must know this is the expected usage pattern for a branch. 41ifdef::git-pull[] 42+ 43[NOTE] 44There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec> 45directly on 'git pull' command line and having multiple 46`remote.<repository>.fetch` entries in your configuration 47for a <repository> and running a 48'git pull' command without any explicit <refspec> parameters. 49<refspec>s listed explicitly on the command line are always 50merged into the current branch after fetching. In other words, 51if you list more than one remote ref, 'git pull' will create 52an Octopus merge. On the other hand, if you do not list any 53explicit <refspec> parameter on the command line, 'git pull' 54will fetch all the <refspec>s it finds in the 55`remote.<repository>.fetch` configuration and merge 56only the first <refspec> found into the current branch. 57This is because making an 58Octopus from remote refs is rarely done, while keeping track 59of multiple remote heads in one-go by fetching more than one 60is often useful. 61endif::git-pull[]