on my remote repository a new branch has been created. In GitBash in my Working Directory (on master branch) I type git remote update and git pull. To my understanding git remote update will update all branches set to track remote ones as explained here:
What is the difference between 'git remote update', 'git fetch' and 'git pull'?
So when I type git diff master newBranch --name-only I expected to see a list of files which are different in both branches. But instead I got the following error message:
fatal: ambiguous argument 'newBranch': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
But if I type git checkout newBranch it works fine, and if I switch back to master by typing git checkout master suddenly git diff master newBranch --name-only works perfectly?
Could anyone explain to me this behavior?
As you mentioned you don't have the local copy of the branch "newBranch" so you need to specify that you want to do a diff with the branch tag from the remote like this:
git diff origin/master origin/newBranch --name-only
or assuming you have the master locally:
git diff master origin/newBranch --name-only
Check which branches you have locally:
git branch -l
or
git branch
check remote branches
git branch -r
check all branches:
git branch -a
So this worked for you after you did a checkout because git automatically created a local branch called newBranch. So before your checkout git branch would not show a branch called "newBranch" but after the checkout it would.