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] [<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. 37 38OPTIONS 39------- 40-q:: 41 Quiet, suppress feedback messages. 42 43-f:: 44 When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the 45 working tree differs from HEAD. This is used to throw away 46 local changes. 47+ 48When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged 49entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored. 50 51-b:: 52 Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at 53 <branch>. The new branch name must pass all checks defined 54 by linkgit:git-check-ref-format[1]. Some of these checks 55 may restrict the characters allowed in a branch name. 56 57-t:: 58--track:: 59 When creating a new branch, set up configuration so that 'git-pull' 60 will automatically retrieve data from the start point, which must be 61 a branch. Use this if you always pull from the same upstream branch 62 into the new branch, and if you don't want to use "git pull 63 <repository> <refspec>" explicitly. This behavior is the default 64 when the start point is a remote branch. Set the 65 branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to `false` if you want 66 'git-checkout' and 'git-branch' to always behave as if '--no-track' were 67 given. Set it to `always` if you want this behavior when the 68 start-point is either a local or remote branch. 69 70--no-track:: 71 Ignore the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable. 72 73-l:: 74 Create the new branch's reflog. This activates recording of 75 all changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date 76 based sha1 expressions such as "<branchname>@\{yesterday}". 77 78-m:: 79 If you have local modifications to one or more files that 80 are different between the current branch and the branch to 81 which you are switching, the command refuses to switch 82 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context. 83 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current 84 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch 85 is done, and you will be on the new branch. 86+ 87When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting 88paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts 89and mark the resolved paths with `git add` (or `git rm` if the merge 90should result in deletion of the path). 91 92<new_branch>:: 93 Name for the new branch. 94 95<branch>:: 96 Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a 97 commit. Defaults to HEAD. 98+ 99When this parameter names a non-branch (but still a valid commit object), 100your HEAD becomes 'detached'. 101 102 103Detached HEAD 104------------- 105 106It is sometimes useful to be able to 'checkout' a commit that is 107not at the tip of one of your branches. The most obvious 108example is to check out the commit at a tagged official release 109point, like this: 110 111------------ 112$ git checkout v2.6.18 113------------ 114 115Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to 116create a temporary branch using `-b` option, but starting from 117version 1.5.0, the above command 'detaches' your HEAD from the 118current branch and directly point at the commit named by the tag 119(`v2.6.18` in the above example). 120 121You can use usual git commands while in this state. You can use 122`git reset --hard $othercommit` to further move around, for 123example. You can make changes and create a new commit on top of 124a detached HEAD. You can even create a merge by using `git 125merge $othercommit`. 126 127The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded 128by any branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch). 129What this means is that you can discard your temporary commits 130and merges by switching back to an existing branch (e.g. `git 131checkout master`), and a later `git prune` or `git gc` would 132garbage-collect them. If you did this by mistake, you can ask 133the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g. 134 135------------ 136$ git log -g -2 HEAD 137------------ 138 139 140EXAMPLES 141-------- 142 143. The following sequence checks out the `master` branch, reverts 144the `Makefile` to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by 145mistake, and gets it back from the index. 146+ 147------------ 148$ git checkout master <1> 149$ git checkout master~2 Makefile <2> 150$ rm -f hello.c 151$ git checkout hello.c <3> 152------------ 153+ 154<1> switch branch 155<2> take out a file out of other commit 156<3> restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch 157+ 158If you have an unfortunate branch that is named `hello.c`, this 159step would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. 160You should instead write: 161+ 162------------ 163$ git checkout -- hello.c 164------------ 165 166. After working in a wrong branch, switching to the correct 167branch would be done using: 168+ 169------------ 170$ git checkout mytopic 171------------ 172+ 173However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may 174differ in files that you have locally modified, in which case, 175the above checkout would fail like this: 176+ 177------------ 178$ git checkout mytopic 179fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge. 180------------ 181+ 182You can give the `-m` flag to the command, which would try a 183three-way merge: 184+ 185------------ 186$ git checkout -m mytopic 187Auto-merging frotz 188------------ 189+ 190After this three-way merge, the local modifications are _not_ 191registered in your index file, so `git diff` would show you what 192changes you made since the tip of the new branch. 193 194. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with 195the `-m` option, you would see something like this: 196+ 197------------ 198$ git checkout -m mytopic 199Auto-merging frotz 200merge: warning: conflicts during merge 201ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz 202fatal: merge program failed 203------------ 204+ 205At this point, `git diff` shows the changes cleanly merged as in 206the previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted 207files. Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with 208`git add` as usual: 209+ 210------------ 211$ edit frotz 212$ git add frotz 213------------ 214 215 216Author 217------ 218Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 219 220Documentation 221-------------- 222Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 223 224GIT 225--- 226Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite