I just started using Git and I got really confused between different branches. Can anyone help me to figure out what the following branch types are?
What is the difference between them? And how do they work with each other?
A quick demo code will be really helpful I guess.
A local branch is a branch that only you (the local user) can see. It exists only on your local machine.
git branch myNewBranch # Create local branch named "myNewBranch"
A remote branch is a branch on a remote location (in most cases origin). You can push the newly created local branch myNewBranch to origin. Now other users can track it.
git push -u origin myNewBranch # Pushes your newly created local branch "myNewBranch"
# to the remote "origin".
# So now a new branch named "myNewBranch" is
# created on the remote machine named "origin"
A remote tracking branch is a local copy of a remote branch. When myNewBranch is pushed to origin using the command above, a remote tracking branch named origin/myNewBranch is created on your machine. This remote tracking branch tracks the remote branch myNewBranch on origin. You can update your remote tracking branch to be in sync with the remote branch using git fetch or git pull.
git pull origin myNewBranch # Pulls new commits from branch "myNewBranch"
# on remote "origin" into remote tracking
# branch on your machine "origin/myNewBranch".
# Here "origin/myNewBranch" is your copy of
# "myNewBranch" on "origin"
A local tracking branch is a local branch that is tracking another branch. This is so that you can push/pull commits to/from the other branch. Local tracking branches in most cases track a remote tracking branch. When you push a local branch to origin using the git push command with a -u option (as shown above), you set up the local branch myNewBranch to track the remote tracking branch origin/myNewBranch. This is needed to use git push and git pull without specifying an upstream to push to or pull from.
git checkout myNewBranch # Switch to myNewBranch
git pull # Updates remote tracking branch "origin/myNewBranch"
# to be in sync with the remote branch "myNewBranch"
# on "origin".
# Pulls these new commits from "origin/myNewBranch"
# to local branch "myNewBranch which you just switched to.