git-checkout

What are checkout s in git? I know once you do checkout to a particular branch, the HEAD points to that branch. But what does it really mean? Does it mean I can then work on that branch? If yes, then, without checking out a branch, I am not able to work on it? Also, what does remote checkout mean? How is it useful? David Culp As you noted, HEAD is a label noting where you are in the commit tree. It moves with you when you move from one commit to another. git checkout <commit> is the basic mechanism for moving around in the commit tree, moving your focus ( HEAD ) to the specified commit. The

Is it possible in git to switch to another branch without checking out all files? After switching branch I need to delete all files, regenerate them, commit and switch back. So checking out files is just a waste of times (and there are about 14000 files - it is a long operation). To make everything clear: I need all this to upload documentation to github. I have repo with gh-pages branch. When I rebuild documentation locally, I copy it to repo directory, commit and push to github. But I was not happy because I had two copies of documentation locally. And I decided to creaty empty branch and

I sometimes use the checkout -b option to create a new branch, check it out at the same time and set up tracking in one command. In a new environment, I get this error: $ git checkout -b test --track origin/master fatal: Cannot update paths and switch to branch 'test' at the same time. Did you intend to checkout 'origin/master' which can not be resolved as commit? Why does Git not like it? This used to work with the same repo. ' origin/master ' which can not be resolved as commit Strange: you need to check your remotes: git remote -v And make sure origin is fetched: git fetch origin Then: git

I work on a project that has 2 branches, A and B. I typically work on branch A, and merge stuff from branch B. For the merging, I would typically do: git merge origin/branchB However, I would also like to keep a local copy of branch B, as I may occasionally check out the branch without first merging with my branch A. For this, I would do: git checkout branchB git pull git checkout branchA Is there a way to do the above in one command, and without having to switch branch back and forth? Should I be using git update-ref for that? How? The Short Answer As long as you're doing a fast-forward merge

Using git I made something like this git clone git checkout {a rev number tree rev before} (here I started to be in a detached head state) //hacking git commit //hacking git commit (some commit where made on origin/master) git pull (which does complete because there was some error due to the fact that I'm no more on master) Because it said to me that I can still commit when in a detached head state, I did so. But now I want to like merge my detached head branch and my local master branch, and then push my bunch of changes to origin/master. So my question is how could I merge the master branch