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, --track:: 51 When creating a new branch, set up configuration so that git-pull 52 will automatically retrieve data from the start point, which must be 53 a branch. Use this if you always pull from the same upstream branch 54 into the new branch, and if you don't want to use "git pull 55 <repository> <refspec>" explicitly. This behavior is the default 56 when the start point is a remote branch. Set the 57 branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to `false` if you want 58 git-checkout and git-branch to always behave as if '--no-track' were 59 given. Set it to `always` if you want this behavior when the 60 start-point is either a local or remote branch. 61 62--no-track:: 63 Ignore the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable. 64 65-l:: 66 Create the new branch's reflog. This activates recording of 67 all changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date 68 based sha1 expressions such as "<branchname>@\{yesterday}". 69 70-m:: 71 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 72 are different between the current branch and the branch to 73 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 74 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 75 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 76 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 77 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 78+ 79When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 80paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 81and mark the resolved paths with `git add` (or `git rm` if the merge 82should result in deletion of the path). 83 84<new_branch>:: 85 Name for the new branch. 86 87<branch>:: 88 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 89 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 90+ 91When this parameter names a non-branch (but still a valid commit object), 92your HEAD becomes 'detached'. 93 94 95Detached HEAD 96------------- 97 98It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is 99not at the tip of one of your branches. The most obvious 100example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release 101point, like this: 102 103------------ 104$ git checkout v2.6.18 105------------ 106 107Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to 108create a temporary branch using `-b` option, but starting from 109version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the 110current branch and directly point at the commit named by the tag 111(`v2.6.18` in the above example). 112 113You can use usual git commands while in this state. You can use 114`git-reset --hard $othercommit` to further move around, for 115example. You can make changes and create a new commit on top of 116a detached HEAD. You can even create a merge by using `git 117merge $othercommit`. 118 119The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded 120by any branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch). 121What this means is that you can discard your temporary commits 122and merges by switching back to an existing branch (e.g. `git 123checkout master`), and a later `git prune` or `git gc` would 124garbage-collect them. If you did this by mistake, you can ask 125the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g. 126 127------------ 128$ git log -g -2 HEAD 129------------ 130 131 132EXAMPLES 133-------- 134 135. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 136the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 137mistake, and gets it back from the index. 138+ 139------------ 140$ git checkout master <1> 141$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 142$ rm -f hello.c 143$ git checkout hello.c <3> 144------------ 145+ 146<1> switch branch 147<2> take out a file out of other commit 148<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 149+ 150If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 151step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 152You should instead write: 153+ 154------------ 155$ git checkout -- hello.c 156------------ 157 158. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 159branch would be done using: 160+ 161------------ 162$ git checkout mytopic 163------------ 164+ 165However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 166differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 167the above checkout would fail like this: 168+ 169------------ 170$ git checkout mytopic 171fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 172------------ 173+ 174You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 175three-way merge: 176+ 177------------ 178$ git checkout -m mytopic 179Auto-merging frotz 180------------ 181+ 182After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 183registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 184changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 185 186. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 187the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 188+ 189------------ 190$ git checkout -m mytopic 191Auto-merging frotz 192merge: warning: conflicts during merge 193ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 194fatal: merge program failed 195------------ 196+ 197At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 198the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 199files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 200`git add` as usual: 201+ 202------------ 203$ edit frotz 204$ git add frotz 205------------ 206 207 208Author 209------ 210Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 211 212Documentation 213-------------- 214Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 215 216GIT 217--- 218Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite