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+ 19The remote ref that matches <src> 20is fetched, and if <dst> is not empty string, the local 21ref that matches it is fast-forwarded using <src>. 22If the optional plus `+` is used, the local ref 23is updated even if it does not result in a fast-forward 24update. 25+ 26[NOTE] 27When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to 28be rewound and rebased regularly, it is expected that 29its new tip will not be descendant of its previous tip 30(as stored in your remote-tracking branch the last time 31you fetched). You would want 32to use the `+` sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates 33will be needed for such branches. There is no way to 34determine or declare that a branch will be made available 35in a repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply 36must know this is the expected usage pattern for a branch. 37ifdef::git-pull[] 38+ 39[NOTE] 40There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec> 41directly on 'git pull' command line and having multiple 42`remote.<repository>.fetch` entries in your configuration 43for a <repository> and running a 44'git pull' command without any explicit <refspec> parameters. 45<refspec>s listed explicitly on the command line are always 46merged into the current branch after fetching. In other words, 47if you list more than one remote ref, 'git pull' will create 48an Octopus merge. On the other hand, if you do not list any 49explicit <refspec> parameter on the command line, 'git pull' 50will fetch all the <refspec>s it finds in the 51`remote.<repository>.fetch` configuration and merge 52only the first <refspec> found into the current branch. 53This is because making an 54Octopus from remote refs is rarely done, while keeping track 55of multiple remote heads in one-go by fetching more than one 56is often useful. 57endif::git-pull[] 58+ 59Some short-cut notations are also supported. 60+ 61* `tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`; 62 it requests fetching everything up to the given tag. 63ifndef::git-pull[] 64* A parameter <ref> without a colon fetches that ref into FETCH_HEAD, 65endif::git-pull[] 66ifdef::git-pull[] 67* A parameter <ref> without a colon merges <ref> into the current 68 branch, 69endif::git-pull[] 70 and updates the remote-tracking branches (if any).