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> [-l]] [-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-l:: 44 Create the new branch's ref log. This activates recording of 45 all changes to made the branch ref, enabling use of date 46 based sha1 expressions such as "<branchname>@{yesterday}". 47 48-m:: 49 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 50 are different between the current branch and the branch to 51 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 52 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 53 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 54 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 55 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 56+ 57When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 58paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 59and mark the resolved paths with `git update-index`. 60 61<new_branch>:: 62 Name for the new branch. 63 64<branch>:: 65 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 66 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 67 68 69EXAMPLES 70-------- 71 72. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 73the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 74mistake, and gets it back from the index. 75+ 76------------ 77$ git checkout master <1> 78$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 79$ rm -f hello.c 80$ git checkout hello.c <3> 81------------ 82+ 83<1> switch branch 84<2> take out a file out of other commit 85<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 86+ 87If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 88step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 89You should instead write: 90+ 91------------ 92$ git checkout -- hello.c 93------------ 94 95. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 96branch would be done using: 97+ 98------------ 99$ git checkout mytopic 100------------ 101+ 102However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 103differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 104the above checkout would fail like this: 105+ 106------------ 107$ git checkout mytopic 108fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 109------------ 110+ 111You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 112three-way merge: 113+ 114------------ 115$ git checkout -m mytopic 116Auto-merging frotz 117------------ 118+ 119After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 120registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 121changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 122 123. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 124the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 125+ 126------------ 127$ git checkout -m mytopic 128Auto-merging frotz 129merge: warning: conflicts during merge 130ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 131fatal: merge program failed 132------------ 133+ 134At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 135the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 136files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 137`git update-index` as usual: 138+ 139------------ 140$ edit frotz 141$ git update-index frotz 142------------ 143 144 145Author 146------ 147Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 148 149Documentation 150-------------- 151Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 152 153GIT 154--- 155Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite 156