<repository>::
- The "remote" repository to pull from. One of the
- following notations can be used to name the repository
- to pull from:
-
- Rsync URL
- rsync://remote.machine/path/to/repo.git/
-
- HTTP(s) URL
- http://remote.machine/path/to/repo.git/
-
- GIT URL
- git://remote.machine/path/to/repo.git/
- remote.machine:/path/to/repo.git/
-
- Local directory
- /path/to/repo.git/
-
- In addition to that, as a short-hand, the name of a file
- in $GIT_DIR/branches directory can be specified; the
- named file should contain a single line, a URL in one of
- the above formats, optionally followed by a hash '#' and
- the name of remote head.
-
-<head>::
- The remote head name to fetch from. That is, make the
- objects reachable from the commit recorded in
- $GIT_DIR/refs/heads/<head> in the remote repository
- available locally.
-
-tag <tag>::
- The remote head tag to fetch from. That is, make the
- objects reachable from the commit recorded in
- $GIT_DIR/refs/tags/<tag> in the remote repository
- available locally.
+ The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch
+ or pull operation. See the section <<URLS,GIT URLS>> below.
+<refspec>::
+ The canonical format of a <refspec> parameter is
+ `+?<src>:<dst>`; that is, an optional plus `+`, followed
+ by the source ref, followed by a colon `:`, followed by
+ the destination ref.
++
+The remote ref that matches <src>
+is fetched, and if <dst> is not empty string, the local
+ref that matches it is fast forwarded using <src>.
+Again, if the optional plus `+` is used, the local ref
+is updated even if it does not result in a fast forward
+update.
++
+[NOTE]
+If the remote branch from which you want to pull is
+modified in non-linear ways such as being rewound and
+rebased frequently, then a pull will attempt a merge with
+an older version of itself, likely conflict, and fail.
+It is under these conditions that you would want to use
+the `+` sign to indicate non-fast-forward updates will
+be needed. There is currently no easy way to determine
+or declare that a branch will be made available in a
+repository with this behavior; the pulling user simply
+must know this is the expected usage pattern for a branch.
++
+[NOTE]
+You never do your own development on branches that appear
+on the right hand side of a <refspec> colon on `Pull:` lines;
+they are to be updated by `git-fetch`. If you intend to do
+development derived from a remote branch `B`, have a `Pull:`
+line to track it (i.e. `Pull: B:remote-B`), and have a separate
+branch `my-B` to do your development on top of it. The latter
+is created by `git branch my-B remote-B` (or its equivalent `git
+checkout -b my-B remote-B`). Run `git fetch` to keep track of
+the progress of the remote side, and when you see something new
+on the remote branch, merge it into your development branch with
+`git pull . remote-B`, while you are on `my-B` branch.
+The common `Pull: master:origin` mapping of a remote `master`
+branch to a local `origin` branch, which is then merged to a
+local development branch, again typically named `master`, is made
+when you run `git clone` for you to follow this pattern.
++
+[NOTE]
+There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec>
+directly on `git-pull` command line and having multiple
+`Pull:` <refspec> lines for a <repository> and running
+`git-pull` command without any explicit <refspec> parameters.
+<refspec> listed explicitly on the command line are always
+merged into the current branch after fetching. In other words,
+if you list more than one remote refs, you would be making
+an Octopus. While `git-pull` run without any explicit <refspec>
+parameter takes default <refspec>s from `Pull:` lines, it
+merges only the first <refspec> found into the current branch,
+after fetching all the remote refs. This is because making an
+Octopus from remote refs is rarely done, while keeping track
+of multiple remote heads in one-go by fetching more than one
+is often useful.
++
+Some short-cut notations are also supported.
++
+* `tag <tag>` means the same as `refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>`;
+ it requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
+* A parameter <ref> without a colon is equivalent to
+ <ref>: when pulling/fetching, so it merges <ref> into the current
+ branch without storing the remote branch anywhere locally