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 7<refspec>:: 8 The canonical format of a <refspec> parameter is 9 `+?<src>:<dst>`; that is, an optional plus `+`, followed 10 by the source ref, followed by a colon `:`, followed by 11 the destination ref. 12+ 13The remote ref that matches <src> 14is fetched, and if <dst> is not empty string, the local 15ref that matches it is fast forwarded using <src>. 16Again, if the optional plus `+` is used, the local ref 17is updated even if it does not result in a fast forward 18update. 19+ 20[NOTE] 21If the remote branch from which you want to pull is 22modified in non-linear ways such as being rewound and 23rebased frequently, then a pull will attempt a merge with 24an older version of itself, likely conflict, and fail. 25It is under these conditions that you would want to use 26the `+` sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates will 27be needed. There is currently no easy way to determine 28or declare that a branch will be made available in a 29repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply 30must know this is the expected usage pattern for a branch. 31+ 32[NOTE] 33You never do your own development on branches that appear 34on the right hand side of a <refspec> colon on `Pull:` lines; 35they are to be updated by 'git-fetch'. If you intend to do 36development derived from a remote branch `B`, have a `Pull:` 37line to track it (i.e. `Pull: B:remote-B`), and have a separate 38branch `my-B` to do your development on top of it. The latter 39is created by `git branch my-B remote-B` (or its equivalent `git 40checkout -b my-B remote-B`). Run `git fetch` to keep track of 41the progress of the remote side, and when you see something new 42on the remote branch, merge it into your development branch with 43`git pull . remote-B`, while you are on `my-B` branch. 44+ 45[NOTE] 46There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec> 47directly on 'git-pull' command line and having multiple 48`Pull:` <refspec> lines for a <repository> and running 49'git-pull' command without any explicit <refspec> parameters. 50<refspec> listed explicitly on the command line are always 51merged into the current branch after fetching. In other words, 52if you list more than one remote refs, you would be making 53an Octopus. While 'git-pull' run without any explicit <refspec> 54parameter takes default <refspec>s from `Pull:` lines, it 55merges only the first <refspec> found into the current branch, 56after fetching all the remote refs. This is because making an 57Octopus from remote refs is rarely done, while keeping track 58of multiple remote heads in one-go by fetching more than one 59is often useful. 60+ 61Some short-cut notations are also supported. 62+ 63* `tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`; 64 it requests fetching everything up to the given tag. 65* A parameter <ref> without a colon is equivalent to 66 <ref>: when pulling/fetching, so it merges <ref> into the current 67 branch without storing the remote branch anywhere locally