Git – update a forked project, on git, to the original/master copy

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A few weeks ago i forked a public project on GitHub. Today, I wish to try some stuff on it BUT i want to make sure the copy I use is the most recent.

Can I update my fork, first?

And what happens if there's changes to the fork AFTER i've started my changes. Can i update my fork again, while leaving my changes in there (ie. merge, if needs be?)

Best Answer

Yeah you can pull the changes from the original repo into your fork. Add a remote to it ( since origin will be your fork ) and pull.

This from GitHub help:

First up, add a remote to the original repo.

Help here: http://help.github.com/remotes/

Then you can pull in updates to the original repo. Quote from http://help.github.com/fork-a-repo/

Pull in upstream changes

If the original repo you forked your project from gets updated, you can add those updates to your fork by running the following code:

$ git fetch upstream

$ git merge upstream/master

All these are for doing from command line.

Below are instructions for TortoiseGit:

Right click over your project -> TortoiseGit -> Settings -> Remote.

Add the remote details here:

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Now, right-click -> TortoiseGit -> Pull.

You will be presented with a dialog to choose the remote ( you should be able to see the remote you added in previous step). Choose it and pull.

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