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<branch>:: 89 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 90 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 91+ 92When this parameter names a non-branch (but still a valid commit object), 93your HEAD becomes 'detached'. 94 95 96Detached HEAD 97------------- 98 99It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is 100not at the tip of one of your branches. The most obvious 101example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release 102point, like this: 103 104------------ 105$ git checkout v2.6.18 106------------ 107 108Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to 109create a temporary branch using `-b` option, but starting from 110version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the 111current branch and directly point at the commit named by the tag 112(`v2.6.18` in the above example). 113 114You can use usual git commands while in this state. You can use 115`git reset --hard $othercommit` to further move around, for 116example. You can make changes and create a new commit on top of 117a detached HEAD. You can even create a merge by using `git 118merge $othercommit`. 119 120The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded 121by any branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch). 122What this means is that you can discard your temporary commits 123and merges by switching back to an existing branch (e.g. `git 124checkout master`), and a later `git prune` or `git gc` would 125garbage-collect them. If you did this by mistake, you can ask 126the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g. 127 128------------ 129$ git log -g -2 HEAD 130------------ 131 132 133EXAMPLES 134-------- 135 136. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 137the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 138mistake, and gets it back from the index. 139+ 140------------ 141$ git checkout master <1> 142$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 143$ rm -f hello.c 144$ git checkout hello.c <3> 145------------ 146+ 147<1> switch branch 148<2> take out a file out of other commit 149<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 150+ 151If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 152step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 153You should instead write: 154+ 155------------ 156$ git checkout -- hello.c 157------------ 158 159. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 160branch would be done using: 161+ 162------------ 163$ git checkout mytopic 164------------ 165+ 166However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 167differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 168the above checkout would fail like this: 169+ 170------------ 171$ git checkout mytopic 172fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 173------------ 174+ 175You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 176three-way merge: 177+ 178------------ 179$ git checkout -m mytopic 180Auto-merging frotz 181------------ 182+ 183After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 184registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 185changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 186 187. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 188the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 189+ 190------------ 191$ git checkout -m mytopic 192Auto-merging frotz 193merge: warning: conflicts during merge 194ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 195fatal: merge program failed 196------------ 197+ 198At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 199the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 200files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 201`git add` as usual: 202+ 203------------ 204$ edit frotz 205$ git add frotz 206------------ 207 208 209Author 210------ 211Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 212 213Documentation 214-------------- 215Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 216 217GIT 218--- 219Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite