1git-checkout(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-checkout - Checkout and switch to a branch 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git-checkout' [-f] [-b <new_branch>] [-m] [<branch>] 12'git-checkout' [-m] [<branch>] <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. 22 23When <paths> are given, this command does *not* switch 24branches. It updates the named paths in the working tree from 25the index file (i.e. it runs `git-checkout-index -f -u`). In 26this case, `-f` and `-b` options are meaningless and giving 27either of them results in an error. <branch> argument can be 28used to specify a specific tree-ish to update the index for the 29given paths before updating the working tree. 30 31 32OPTIONS 33------- 34-f:: 35 Force a re-read of everything. 36 37-b:: 38 Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at 39 <branch>. The new branch name must pass all checks defined 40 by gitlink:git-check-ref-format[1]. Some of these checks 41 may restrict the characters allowed in a branch name. 42 43-m:: 44 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 45 are different between the current branch and the branch to 46 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 47 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 48 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 49 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 50 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 51+ 52When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 53paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 54and mark the resolved paths with `git update-index`. 55 56<new_branch>:: 57 Name for the new branch. 58 59<branch>:: 60 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 61 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 62 63 64EXAMPLES 65-------- 66 67. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 68the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 69mistake, and gets it back from the index. 70+ 71------------ 72$ git checkout master <1> 73$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 74$ rm -f hello.c 75$ git checkout hello.c <3> 76------------ 77+ 78<1> switch branch 79<2> take out a file out of other commit 80<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 81+ 82If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 83step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 84You should instead write: 85+ 86------------ 87$ git checkout -- hello.c 88------------ 89 90. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 91branch would be done using: 92+ 93------------ 94$ git checkout mytopic 95------------ 96+ 97However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 98differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 99the above checkout would fail like this: 100+ 101------------ 102$ git checkout mytopic 103fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 104------------ 105+ 106You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 107three-way merge: 108+ 109------------ 110$ git checkout -m mytopic 111Auto-merging frotz 112------------ 113+ 114After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 115registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 116changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 117 118. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 119the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 120+ 121------------ 122$ git checkout -m mytopic 123Auto-merging frotz 124merge: warning: conflicts during merge 125ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 126fatal: merge program failed 127------------ 128+ 129At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 130the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 131files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 132`git update-index` as usual: 133+ 134------------ 135$ edit frotz 136$ git update-index frotz 137------------ 138 139 140Author 141------ 142Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 143 144Documentation 145-------------- 146Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 147 148GIT 149--- 150Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite 151