Bob begins with:
------------------------------------------------
-$ git clone /home/alice/project myrepo
+bob$ git clone /home/alice/project myrepo
------------------------------------------------
This creates a new directory "myrepo" containing a clone of Alice's
------------------------------------------------
(edit files)
-$ git commit -a
+bob$ git commit -a
(repeat as necessary)
------------------------------------------------
at /home/bob/myrepo. She does this with:
------------------------------------------------
-$ cd /home/alice/project
-$ git pull /home/bob/myrepo master
+alice$ cd /home/alice/project
+alice$ git pull /home/bob/myrepo master
------------------------------------------------
This merges the changes from Bob's "master" branch into Alice's
The "pull" command thus performs two operations: it fetches changes
from a remote branch, then merges them into the current branch.
+Note that in general, Alice would want her local changes committed before
+initiating this "pull". If Bob's work conflicts with what Alice did since
+their histories forked, Alice will use her working tree and the index to
+resolve conflicts, and existing local changes will interfere with the
+conflict resolution process (git will still perform the fetch but will
+refuse to merge --- Alice will have to get rid of her local changes in
+some way and pull again when this happens).
+
+Alice can peek at what Bob did without merging first, using the "fetch"
+command; this allows Alice to inspect what Bob did, using a special
+symbol "FETCH_HEAD", in order to determine if he has anything worth
+pulling, like this:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+alice$ git fetch /home/bob/myrepo master
+alice$ git log -p ..FETCH_HEAD
+------------------------------------------------
+
+This operation is safe even if Alice has uncommitted local changes.
+
+After inspecting what Bob did, if there is nothing urgent, Alice may
+decide to continue working without pulling from Bob. If Bob's history
+does have something Alice would immediately need, Alice may choose to
+stash her work-in-progress first, do a "pull", and then finally unstash
+her work-in-progress on top of the resulting history.
+
When you are working in a small closely knit group, it is not
unusual to interact with the same repository over and over
again. By defining 'remote' repository shorthand, you can make
it easier:
------------------------------------------------
-$ git remote add bob /home/bob/myrepo
+alice$ git remote add bob /home/bob/myrepo
------------------------------------------------
-With this, Alice can perform the first operation alone using the
+With this, Alice can perform the first part of the "pull" operation alone using the
'git-fetch' command without merging them with her own branch,
using:
-------------------------------------
-$ git fetch bob
+alice$ git fetch bob
-------------------------------------
Unlike the longhand form, when Alice fetches from Bob using a
`bob/master`. So after this:
-------------------------------------
-$ git log -p master..bob/master
+alice$ git log -p master..bob/master
-------------------------------------
shows a list of all the changes that Bob made since he branched from
could merge the changes into her master branch:
-------------------------------------
-$ git merge bob/master
+alice$ git merge bob/master
-------------------------------------
This `merge` can also be done by 'pulling from her own remote
tracking branch', like this:
-------------------------------------
-$ git pull . remotes/bob/master
+alice$ git pull . remotes/bob/master
-------------------------------------
Note that git pull always merges into the current branch,
Later, Bob can update his repo with Alice's latest changes using
-------------------------------------
-$ git pull
+bob$ git pull
-------------------------------------
Note that he doesn't need to give the path to Alice's repository;
used for pulls:
-------------------------------------
-$ git config --get remote.origin.url
+bob$ git config --get remote.origin.url
/home/alice/project
-------------------------------------
name "origin/master":
-------------------------------------
-$ git branch -r
+bob$ git branch -r
origin/master
-------------------------------------
perform clones and pulls using the ssh protocol:
-------------------------------------
-$ git clone alice.org:/home/alice/project myrepo
+bob$ git clone alice.org:/home/alice/project myrepo
-------------------------------------
Alternatively, git has a native protocol, or can use rsync or http;