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' [-f|--ours|--theirs] [<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, or from a named commit. In 27this case, the `-b` options is meaningless and giving 28either of them results in an error. <tree-ish> argument can be 29used to specify a specific tree-ish (i.e. commit, tag or tree) 30to update the index for the given paths before updating the 31working tree. 32 33The index may contain unmerged entries after a failed merge. By 34default, if you try to check out such an entry from the index, the 35checkout operation will fail and nothing will be checked out. 36Using -f will ignore these unmerged entries. The contents from a 37specific side of the merge can be checked out of the index by 38using --ours or --theirs. 39 40OPTIONS 41------- 42-q:: 43 Quiet, suppress feedback messages. 44 45-f:: 46 When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the 47 working tree differs from HEAD. This is used to throw away 48 local changes. 49+ 50When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged 51entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored. 52 53--ours:: 54--theirs:: 55 When checking out paths from the index, check out stage #2 56 ('ours') or #3 ('theirs') for unmerged paths. 57 58-b:: 59 Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at 60 <branch>. The new branch name must pass all checks defined 61 by linkgit:git-check-ref-format[1]. Some of these checks 62 may restrict the characters allowed in a branch name. 63 64-t:: 65--track:: 66 When creating a new branch, set up configuration so that 'git-pull' 67 will automatically retrieve data from the start point, which must be 68 a branch. Use this if you always pull from the same upstream branch 69 into the new branch, and if you don't want to use "git pull 70 <repository> <refspec>" explicitly. This behavior is the default 71 when the start point is a remote branch. Set the 72 branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to `false` if you want 73 'git-checkout' and 'git-branch' to always behave as if '--no-track' were 74 given. Set it to `always` if you want this behavior when the 75 start-point is either a local or remote branch. 76 77--no-track:: 78 Ignore the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable. 79 80-l:: 81 Create the new branch's reflog. This activates recording of 82 all changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date 83 based sha1 expressions such as "<branchname>@\{yesterday}". 84 85-m:: 86 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 87 are different between the current branch and the branch to 88 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 89 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 90 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 91 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 92 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 93+ 94When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 95paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 96and mark the resolved paths with `git add` (or `git rm` if the merge 97should result in deletion of the path). 98 99<new_branch>:: 100 Name for the new branch. 101 102<branch>:: 103 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 104 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 105+ 106When this parameter names a non-branch (but still a valid commit object), 107your HEAD becomes 'detached'. 108 109 110Detached HEAD 111------------- 112 113It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is 114not at the tip of one of your branches. The most obvious 115example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release 116point, like this: 117 118------------ 119$ git checkout v2.6.18 120------------ 121 122Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to 123create a temporary branch using `-b` option, but starting from 124version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the 125current branch and directly point at the commit named by the tag 126(`v2.6.18` in the above example). 127 128You can use usual git commands while in this state. You can use 129`git reset --hard $othercommit` to further move around, for 130example. You can make changes and create a new commit on top of 131a detached HEAD. You can even create a merge by using `git 132merge $othercommit`. 133 134The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded 135by any branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch). 136What this means is that you can discard your temporary commits 137and merges by switching back to an existing branch (e.g. `git 138checkout master`), and a later `git prune` or `git gc` would 139garbage-collect them. If you did this by mistake, you can ask 140the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g. 141 142------------ 143$ git log -g -2 HEAD 144------------ 145 146 147EXAMPLES 148-------- 149 150. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 151the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 152mistake, and gets it back from the index. 153+ 154------------ 155$ git checkout master <1> 156$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 157$ rm -f hello.c 158$ git checkout hello.c <3> 159------------ 160+ 161<1> switch branch 162<2> take out a file out of other commit 163<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 164+ 165If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 166step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 167You should instead write: 168+ 169------------ 170$ git checkout -- hello.c 171------------ 172 173. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 174branch would be done using: 175+ 176------------ 177$ git checkout mytopic 178------------ 179+ 180However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 181differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 182the above checkout would fail like this: 183+ 184------------ 185$ git checkout mytopic 186fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 187------------ 188+ 189You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 190three-way merge: 191+ 192------------ 193$ git checkout -m mytopic 194Auto-merging frotz 195------------ 196+ 197After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 198registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 199changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 200 201. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 202the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 203+ 204------------ 205$ git checkout -m mytopic 206Auto-merging frotz 207merge: warning: conflicts during merge 208ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 209fatal: merge program failed 210------------ 211+ 212At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 213the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 214files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 215`git add` as usual: 216+ 217------------ 218$ edit frotz 219$ git add frotz 220------------ 221 222 223Author 224------ 225Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 226 227Documentation 228-------------- 229Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 230 231GIT 232--- 233Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite