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