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NAME
git-pull - Fetch from and integrate 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
^
origin/master in your repository
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 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
-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, -e, --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).
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, move the HEAD, or 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.
-r, --rebase[=false|true|preserve]
When true, 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.
When set to preserve, rebase with the --preserve-merges option passed to git rebase so that locally
created merge commits will not be flattened.
When false, merge the current branch into the upstream branch.
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>
Limit fetching to the specified number of commits from the tip of each remote branch history. If
fetching to a shallow repository created by git clone with --depth=<depth> option (see git-clone(1)),
deepen or shorten the history to the specified number of commits. Tags for the deepened commits are
not fetched.
--unshallow
If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow repository to a complete one, removing all
the limitations imposed by shallow repositories.
If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as possible so that the current repository has the
same history as the source repository.
--update-shallow
By default when fetching from a shallow repository, git fetch refuses refs that require updating
.git/shallow. This option updates .git/shallow and accept such refs.
-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>
Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update. When no <refspec>s appear on the
command line, the refs to fetch are read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see git-
fetch(1)).
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 colon can be omitted when <dst> is empty.
tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>; it requests fetching everything up to
the given tag.
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
When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound and rebased regularly, it is
expected that its new tip will not be descendant of its previous tip (as stored in your
remote-tracking branch the last time you fetched). You would want to use the + sign to indicate
non-fast-forward updates will be needed for such branches. There is no 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
There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec> directly on git pull command line and
having multiple remote.<repository>.fetch entries in your configuration for a <repository> and
running a git pull command without any explicit <refspec> parameters. <refspec>s 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 ref, git pull will create an Octopus merge. On the other
hand, if you do not list any explicit <refspec> parameter on the command line, git pull will
fetch all the <refspec>s it finds in the remote.<repository>.fetch configuration and merge only
the first <refspec> found into the current branch. 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.
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 native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and should be used with caution on
unsecured networks.
The following syntaxes may be used with them:
• ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
• git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
• http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
• ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
• rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
• [user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first colon. This helps differentiate a
local path that contains a colon. For example the local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute
path or ./foo:bar to avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
• ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
• git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
• [user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following syntaxes may be used:
• /path/to/repo.git/
• 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:
• <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:
• a remote in the Git configuration file: $GIT_DIR/config,
• a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory, or
• 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 mismerges 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.
• If their version only introduces whitespace changes to a line, our version is used;
• If our version introduces whitespace changes but their version includes a substantial change,
their version is used;
• 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.
With the strategies that use 3-way merge (including the default, recursive), if a change is made on both
branches, but later reverted on one of the branches, that change will be present in the merged result;
some people find this behavior confusing. It occurs because only the heads and the merge base are
considered when performing a merge, not the individual commits. The merge algorithm therefore considers
the reverted change as no change at all, and substitutes the changed version instead.
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
• 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.
• 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 2.7.4 03/04/2021 GIT-PULL(1)