GIT-PULL(1) Git Manual GIT-PULL(1)
NAME
git-pull - Fetch from and merge with another repository or a local
branch
SYNOPSIS
git pull [options] [<repository> [<refspec>...]]
DESCRIPTION
Incorporates changes from a remote repository into the current branch.
In its default mode, git pull is shorthand for git fetch followed by
git merge FETCH_HEAD.
More precisely, git pull runs git fetch with the given parameters and
calls git merge to merge the retrieved branch heads into the current
branch. With --rebase, it runs git rebase instead of git merge.
<repository> should be the name of a remote repository as passed to
git-fetch(1). <refspec> can name an arbitrary remote ref (for example,
the name of a tag) or even a collection of refs with corresponding
remote-tracking branches (e.g., refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*),
but usually it is the name of a branch in the remote repository.
Default values for <repository> and <branch> are read from the "remote"
and "merge" configuration for the current branch as set by git-
branch(1) --track.
Assume the following history exists and the current branch is "master":
A---B---C master on origin
/
D---E---F---G master
Then "git pull" will fetch and replay the changes from the remote
master branch since it diverged from the local master (i.e., E) until
its current commit (C) on top of master and record the result in a new
commit along with the names of the two parent commits and a log message
from the user describing the changes.
A---B---C remotes/origin/master
/ \
D---E---F---G---H master
See git-merge(1) for details, including how conflicts are presented and
handled.
In Git 1.7.0 or later, to cancel a conflicting merge, use git reset
--merge. Warning: In older versions of Git, running git pull with
uncommitted changes is discouraged: while possible, it leaves you in a
state that may be hard to back out of in the case of a conflict.
If any of the remote changes overlap with local uncommitted changes,
the merge will be automatically cancelled and the work tree untouched.
It is generally best to get any local changes in working order before
pulling or stash them away with git-stash(1).
OPTIONS
Options meant for git pull itself and the underlying git merge must be
given before the options meant for git fetch.
-q, --quiet
This is passed to both underlying git-fetch to squelch reporting of
during transfer, and underlying git-merge to squelch output during
merging.
-v, --verbose
Pass --verbose to git-fetch and git-merge.
--[no-]recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
This option controls if new commits of all populated submodules
should be fetched too (see git-config(1) and gitmodules(5)). That
might be necessary to get the data needed for merging submodule
commits, a feature Git learned in 1.7.3. Notice that the result of
a merge will not be checked out in the submodule, "git submodule
update" has to be called afterwards to bring the work tree up to
date with the merge result.
Options related to merging
--commit, --no-commit
Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used to
override --no-commit.
With --no-commit perform the merge but pretend the merge failed and
do not autocommit, to give the user a chance to inspect and further
tweak the merge result before committing.
--edit, --no-edit
Invoke an editor before committing successful mechanical merge to
further edit the auto-generated merge message, so that the user can
explain and justify the merge. The --no-edit option can be used to
accept the auto-generated message (this is generally discouraged).
The --edit option is still useful if you are giving a draft message
with the -m option from the command line and want to edit it in the
editor.
Older scripts may depend on the historical behaviour of not
allowing the user to edit the merge log message. They will see an
editor opened when they run git merge. To make it easier to adjust
such scripts to the updated behaviour, the environment variable
GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT can be set to no at the beginning of them.
--ff
When the merge resolves as a fast-forward, only update the branch
pointer, without creating a merge commit. This is the default
behavior.
--no-ff
Create a merge commit even when the merge resolves as a
fast-forward. This is the default behaviour when merging an
annotated (and possibly signed) tag.
--ff-only
Refuse to merge and exit with a non-zero status unless the current
HEAD is already up-to-date or the merge can be resolved as a
fast-forward.
--log[=<n>], --no-log
In addition to branch names, populate the log message with one-line
descriptions from at most <n> actual commits that are being merged.
See also git-fmt-merge-msg(1).
With --no-log do not list one-line descriptions from the actual
commits being merged.
--stat, -n, --no-stat
Show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also
controlled by the configuration option merge.stat.
With -n or --no-stat do not show a diffstat at the end of the
merge.
--squash, --no-squash
Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge
happened (except for the merge information), but do not actually
make a commit or move the HEAD, nor record $GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD to
cause the next git commit command to create a merge commit. This
allows you to create a single commit on top of the current branch
whose effect is the same as merging another branch (or more in case
of an octopus).
With --no-squash perform the merge and commit the result. This
option can be used to override --squash.
-s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>
Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once to
specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is no -s
option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead (git
merge-recursive when merging a single head, git merge-octopus
otherwise).
-X <option>, --strategy-option=<option>
Pass merge strategy specific option through to the merge strategy.
--verify-signatures, --no-verify-signatures
Verify that the commits being merged have good and trusted GPG
signatures and abort the merge in case they do not.
--summary, --no-summary
Synonyms to --stat and --no-stat; these are deprecated and will be
removed in the future.
-q, --quiet
Operate quietly. Implies --no-progress.
-v, --verbose
Be verbose.
--progress, --no-progress
Turn progress on/off explicitly. If neither is specified, progress
is shown if standard error is connected to a terminal. Note that
not all merge strategies may support progress reporting.
-r, --rebase
Rebase the current branch on top of the upstream branch after
fetching. If there is a remote-tracking branch corresponding to the
upstream branch and the upstream branch was rebased since last
fetched, the rebase uses that information to avoid rebasing
non-local changes.
See pull.rebase, branch.<name>.rebase and branch.autosetuprebase in
git-config(1) if you want to make git pull always use --rebase
instead of merging.
Note
This is a potentially dangerous mode of operation. It rewrites
history, which does not bode well when you published that
history already. Do not use this option unless you have read
git-rebase(1) carefully.
--no-rebase
Override earlier --rebase.
Options related to fetching
--all
Fetch all remotes.
-a, --append
Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the existing
contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old data in
.git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.
--depth=<depth>
Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository created by
git clone with --depth=<depth> option (see git-clone(1)) to the
specified number of commits from the tip of each remote branch
history. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched.
--unshallow
Convert a shallow repository to a complete one, removing all the
limitations imposed by shallow repositories.
-f, --force
When git fetch is used with <rbranch>:<lbranch> refspec, it refuses
to update the local branch <lbranch> unless the remote branch
<rbranch> it fetches is a descendant of <lbranch>. This option
overrides that check.
-k, --keep
Keep downloaded pack.
--no-tags
By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded from the
remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This option
disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagopt setting. See
git-config(1).
-u, --update-head-ok
By default git fetch refuses to update the head which corresponds
to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is purely
for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git fetch,
and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
supposed to use it.
--upload-pack <upload-pack>
When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by git
fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command to
specify non-default path for the command run on the other end.
--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is
not directed to a terminal.
<repository>
The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section GIT
URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES
below).
<refspec>
The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed
by the source ref <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the
destination ref <dst>.
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>. 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.
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.
o tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it
requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
o 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
GIT URLS
In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the
address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending
on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent.
Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and
ftps can be used for fetching and rsync can be used for fetching and
pushing, but these are inefficient and deprecated; do not use them).
The following syntaxes may be used with them:
o ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
o rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
o [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
o ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
o git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
o [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following
syntaxes may be used:
o /path/to/repo.git/
o file:///path/to/repo.git/
These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the
former implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.
When Git doesn't know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one exists. To
explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be used:
o <transport>::<address>
where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary
URL-like string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked.
See gitremote-helpers(1) for details.
If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and
you want to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use
will be rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration
section of the form:
[url "<actual url base>"]
insteadOf = <other url base>
For example, with this:
[url "git://git.host.xz/"]
insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/
insteadOf = work:
a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
"git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
If you want to rewrite URLs for push only, you can create a
configuration section of the form:
[url "<actual url base>"]
pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
For example, with this:
[url "ssh://example.org/"]
pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
a URL like "git://example.org/path/to/repo.git" will be rewritten to
"ssh://example.org/path/to/repo.git" for pushes, but pulls will still
use the original URL.
REMOTES
The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as
<repository> argument:
o a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
o a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
o a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.
All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line
because they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.
Named remote in configuration file
You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously
configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit
to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to
access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by
default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The
entry in the config file would appear like this:
[remote "<name>"]
url = <url>
pushurl = <pushurl>
push = <refspec>
fetch = <refspec>
The <pushurl> is used for pushes only. It is optional and defaults to
<url>.
Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes
You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The
URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in
this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on
the command line. This file should have the following format:
URL: one of the above URL format
Push: <refspec>
Pull: <refspec>
Push: lines are used by git push and Pull: lines are used by git pull
and git fetch. Multiple Push: and Pull: lines may be specified for
additional branch mappings.
Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches
You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The
URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file
should have the following format:
<url>#<head>
<url> is required; #<head> is optional.
Depending on the operation, git will use one of the following refspecs,
if you don't provide one on the command line. <branch> is the name of
this file in $GIT_DIR/branches and <head> defaults to master.
git fetch uses:
refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>
git push uses:
HEAD:refs/heads/<head>
MERGE STRATEGIES
The merge mechanism (git-merge and git-pull commands) allows the
backend merge strategies to be chosen with -s option. Some strategies
can also take their own options, which can be passed by giving
-X<option> arguments to git-merge and/or git-pull.
resolve
This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch and
another branch you pulled from) using a 3-way merge algorithm. It
tries to carefully detect criss-cross merge ambiguities and is
considered generally safe and fast.
recursive
This can only resolve two heads using a 3-way merge algorithm. When
there is more than one common ancestor that can be used for 3-way
merge, it creates a merged tree of the common ancestors and uses
that as the reference tree for the 3-way merge. This has been
reported to result in fewer merge conflicts without causing
mis-merges by tests done on actual merge commits taken from Linux
2.6 kernel development history. Additionally this can detect and
handle merges involving renames. This is the default merge strategy
when pulling or merging one branch.
The recursive strategy can take the following options:
ours
This option forces conflicting hunks to be auto-resolved
cleanly by favoring our version. Changes from the other tree
that do not conflict with our side are reflected to the merge
result. For a binary file, the entire contents are taken from
our side.
This should not be confused with the ours merge strategy, which
does not even look at what the other tree contains at all. It
discards everything the other tree did, declaring our history
contains all that happened in it.
theirs
This is the opposite of ours.
patience
With this option, merge-recursive spends a little extra time to
avoid mismerges that sometimes occur due to unimportant
matching lines (e.g., braces from distinct functions). Use this
when the branches to be merged have diverged wildly. See also
git-diff(1)--patience.
diff-algorithm=[patience|minimal|histogram|myers]
Tells merge-recursive to use a different diff algorithm, which
can help avoid mismerges that occur due to unimportant matching
lines (such as braces from distinct functions). See also git-
diff(1)--diff-algorithm.
ignore-space-change, ignore-all-space, ignore-space-at-eol
Treats lines with the indicated type of whitespace change as
unchanged for the sake of a three-way merge. Whitespace changes
mixed with other changes to a line are not ignored. See also
git-diff(1)-b, -w, and --ignore-space-at-eol.
o If their version only introduces whitespace changes to a
line, our version is used;
o If our version introduces whitespace changes but their
version includes a substantial change, their version is
used;
o Otherwise, the merge proceeds in the usual way.
renormalize
This runs a virtual check-out and check-in of all three stages
of a file when resolving a three-way merge. This option is
meant to be used when merging branches with different clean
filters or end-of-line normalization rules. See "Merging
branches with differing checkin/checkout attributes" in
gitattributes(5) for details.
no-renormalize
Disables the renormalize option. This overrides the
merge.renormalize configuration variable.
rename-threshold=<n>
Controls the similarity threshold used for rename detection.
See also git-diff(1)-M.
subtree[=<path>]
This option is a more advanced form of subtree strategy, where
the strategy makes a guess on how two trees must be shifted to
match with each other when merging. Instead, the specified path
is prefixed (or stripped from the beginning) to make the shape
of two trees to match.
octopus
This resolves cases with more than two heads, but refuses to do a
complex merge that needs manual resolution. It is primarily meant
to be used for bundling topic branch heads together. This is the
default merge strategy when pulling or merging more than one
branch.
ours
This resolves any number of heads, but the resulting tree of the
merge is always that of the current branch head, effectively
ignoring all changes from all other branches. It is meant to be
used to supersede old development history of side branches. Note
that this is different from the -Xours option to the recursive
merge strategy.
subtree
This is a modified recursive strategy. When merging trees A and B,
if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to match
the tree structure of A, instead of reading the trees at the same
level. This adjustment is also done to the common ancestor tree.
DEFAULT BEHAVIOUR
Often people use git pull without giving any parameter. Traditionally,
this has been equivalent to saying git pull origin. However, when
configuration branch.<name>.remote is present while on branch <name>,
that value is used instead of origin.
In order to determine what URL to use to fetch from, the value of the
configuration remote.<origin>.url is consulted and if there is not any
such variable, the value on URL: ` line in `$GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin>
file is used.
In order to determine what remote branches to fetch (and optionally
store in the remote-tracking branches) when the command is run without
any refspec parameters on the command line, values of the configuration
variable remote.<origin>.fetch are consulted, and if there aren't any,
$GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin> file is consulted and its `Pull: ` lines are
used. In addition to the refspec formats described in the OPTIONS
section, you can have a globbing refspec that looks like this:
refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
A globbing refspec must have a non-empty RHS (i.e. must store what were
fetched in remote-tracking branches), and its LHS and RHS must end with
/*. The above specifies that all remote branches are tracked using
remote-tracking branches in refs/remotes/origin/ hierarchy under the
same name.
The rule to determine which remote branch to merge after fetching is a
bit involved, in order not to break backward compatibility.
If explicit refspecs were given on the command line of git pull, they
are all merged.
When no refspec was given on the command line, then git pull uses the
refspec from the configuration or $GIT_DIR/remotes/<origin>. In such
cases, the following rules apply:
1. If branch.<name>.merge configuration for the current branch <name>
exists, that is the name of the branch at the remote site that is
merged.
2. If the refspec is a globbing one, nothing is merged.
3. Otherwise the remote branch of the first refspec is merged.
EXAMPLES
o Update the remote-tracking branches for the repository you cloned
from, then merge one of them into your current branch:
$ git pull, git pull origin
Normally the branch merged in is the HEAD of the remote repository,
but the choice is determined by the branch.<name>.remote and
branch.<name>.merge options; see git-config(1) for details.
o Merge into the current branch the remote branch next:
$ git pull origin next
This leaves a copy of next temporarily in FETCH_HEAD, but does not
update any remote-tracking branches. Using remote-tracking
branches, the same can be done by invoking fetch and merge:
$ git fetch origin
$ git merge origin/next
If you tried a pull which resulted in complex conflicts and would want
to start over, you can recover with git reset.
BUGS
Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already
checked out submodules right now. When e.g. upstream added a new
submodule in the just fetched commits of the superproject the submodule
itself can not be fetched, making it impossible to check out that
submodule later without having to do a fetch again. This is expected to
be fixed in a future Git version.
SEE ALSO
git-fetch(1), git-merge(1), git-config(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 1.8.3.1 07/30/2024 GIT-PULL(1)
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