1<repository>:: 2 The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch 3 or pull operation. This parameter can be either a URL 4 (see the section <<URLS,GIT URLS>> below) or the name 5 of a remote (see the section <<REMOTES,REMOTES>> below). 6 7<refspec>:: 8 The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus 9 `{plus}`, followed by the source ref <src>, followed 10 by a colon `:`, followed by the destination ref <dst>. 11+ 12The remote ref that matches <src> 13is fetched, and if <dst> is not empty string, the local 14ref that matches it is fast-forwarded using <src>. 15If the optional plus `+` is used, the local ref 16is updated even if it does not result in a fast-forward 17update. 18+ 19[NOTE] 20If the remote branch from which you want to pull is 21modified in non-linear ways such as being rewound and 22rebased frequently, then a pull will attempt a merge with 23an older version of itself, likely conflict, and fail. 24It is under these conditions that you would want to use 25the `+` sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates will 26be needed. There is currently no easy way to determine 27or declare that a branch will be made available in a 28repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply 29must know this is the expected usage pattern for a branch. 30+ 31[NOTE] 32You never do your own development on branches that appear 33on the right hand side of a <refspec> colon on `Pull:` lines; 34they are to be updated by 'git-fetch'. If you intend to do 35development derived from a remote branch `B`, have a `Pull:` 36line to track it (i.e. `Pull: B:remote-B`), and have a separate 37branch `my-B` to do your development on top of it. The latter 38is created by `git branch my-B remote-B` (or its equivalent `git 39checkout -b my-B remote-B`). Run `git fetch` to keep track of 40the progress of the remote side, and when you see something new 41on the remote branch, merge it into your development branch with 42`git pull . remote-B`, while you are on `my-B` branch. 43+ 44[NOTE] 45There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec> 46directly on 'git-pull' command line and having multiple 47`Pull:` <refspec> lines for a <repository> and running 48'git-pull' command without any explicit <refspec> parameters. 49<refspec> listed explicitly on the command line are always 50merged into the current branch after fetching. In other words, 51if you list more than one remote refs, you would be making 52an Octopus. While 'git-pull' run without any explicit <refspec> 53parameter takes default <refspec>s from `Pull:` lines, it 54merges only the first <refspec> found into the current branch, 55after fetching all the remote refs. This is because making an 56Octopus from remote refs is rarely done, while keeping track 57of multiple remote heads in one-go by fetching more than one 58is often useful. 59+ 60Some short-cut notations are also supported. 61+ 62* `tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`; 63 it requests fetching everything up to the given tag. 64* A parameter <ref> without a colon is equivalent to 65 <ref>: when pulling/fetching, so it merges <ref> into the current 66 branch without storing the remote branch anywhere locally