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gitgit-pullgit-fetch

update origin/master branch without checking that branch out

I was under the assumption that:

git fetch origin

would update all the remote branches:

remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/dev

etc.

but it turns out that doesn't seem to be the case and I can't figure out how these branches stay up to date, if it's not the case.

how can I make sure my local remote branches are up to date? perhaps I will have better luck with:

git fetch origin master:master

?

Solution

  • Generally, git fetch origin will update all the remote-tracking names under origin/*. Under what conditions are you not seeing this occur? There are two common cases in modern Git:

    • A single-branch clone maps one upstream branch to one remote-tracking name. If that's not what you want, avoid single-branch clones (or transform them into normal clones).

    • Running git fetch origin master, for instance, limits the update to updating only origin/master, even if, say, dev on origin has new commits that would update origin/dev if you had run git fetch origin instead of git fetch origin master.

    That second case is driven all the time by git pull, if you use it. (I recommend avoiding git pull in favor of separate fetch and second-command, rebase or merge as desired.)

    One last case is common in Git versions predating 1.8.2, in which git fetch origin master fails to update even origin/master, for instance. The solution to this is to upgrade to a modern Git.