Git checkout -b, branch already exists

gitgithub

When I'm merging two branches and they can't be merged automatically Github provides these instructions:

Step 1: From your project repository, bring in the changes and test.

git fetch origin
git checkout -b master origin/master
git merge develop

Step 2: Merge the changes and update on GitHub.

git checkout develop
git merge --no-ff master
git push origin develop

But, in this case, the branch master already exists locally, and the line git checkout -b master origin/master returns this message:

git checkout -b master origin/master
fatal: A branch named 'master' already exists.

Is the correct thing to do in this case to replace that line with git checkout master? I've wondered this for a while, bit worried about what git checkout master might do as opposed to with -b.

Best Answer

If master doesn't exist, then after this line

git checkout -b master origin/master

master will be a branch pointing to the same commit as origin/master.

If you already have a master branch, it might be out of date with origin/master, so simply writing

git checkout master

isn't quite enough. You'll also want to run

git merge origin/master

afterward to bring master up to date (typically this will just be a fast forward).

Related Solutions

Git – the difference between ‘git pull’ and ‘git fetch’

In the simplest terms, git pull does a git fetch followed by a git merge.

You can do a git fetch at any time to update your remote-tracking branches under refs/remotes/<remote>/. This operation never changes any of your own local branches under refs/heads, and is safe to do without changing your working copy. I have even heard of people running git fetch periodically in a cron job in the background (although I wouldn't recommend doing this).

A git pull is what you would do to bring a local branch up-to-date with its remote version, while also updating your other remote-tracking branches.

From the Git documentation for git pull:

In its default mode, git pull is shorthand for git fetch followed by git merge FETCH_HEAD.

Git – How to undo ‘git add’ before commit

You can undo git add before commit with

git reset <file>

which will remove it from the current index (the "about to be committed" list) without changing anything else.

You can use

git reset

without any file name to unstage all due changes. This can come in handy when there are too many files to be listed one by one in a reasonable amount of time.

In old versions of Git, the above commands are equivalent to git reset HEAD <file> and git reset HEAD respectively, and will fail if HEAD is undefined (because you haven't yet made any commits in your repository) or ambiguous (because you created a branch called HEAD, which is a stupid thing that you shouldn't do). This was changed in Git 1.8.2, though, so in modern versions of Git you can use the commands above even prior to making your first commit:

"git reset" (without options or parameters) used to error out when you do not have any commits in your history, but it now gives you an empty index (to match non-existent commit you are not even on).

Documentation: git reset

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Git – the difference between ‘git pull’ and ‘git fetch’

Git – How to undo ‘git add’ before commit

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