error: pathspec 'test-branch' did not match any file(s) known to git

Question

I am a new user of Git. I have forked a repository called Spoon-Knife (available for practicing forking with Git). Then, I cloned it locally by running

git c         


        

Answer 1

just follow three steps, git branch problem will be solved.

git remote update
git fetch
git checkout --track origin/test-branch

Answer 2

When I run git branch, it only shows *master, not the remaining two branches.

git branch doesn't list test_branch, because no such local branch exist in your local repo, yet. When cloning a repo, only one local branch (master, here) is created and checked out in the resulting clone, irrespective of the number of branches that exist in the remote repo that you cloned from. At this stage, test_branch only exist in your repo as a remote-tracking branch, not as a local branch.

And when I run

git checkout test-branch

I get the following error [...]

You must be using an "old" version of Git. In more recent versions (from v1.7.0-rc0 onwards),

If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name, treat [git checkout <branch>] as equivalent to

$ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>

Simply run

git checkout -b test_branch --track origin/test_branch

instead. Or update to a more recent version of Git.

Answer 3

I got this error because the instruction on the Web was

git checkout https://github.com/veripool/verilog-mode

which I did in a directory where (on my own initiative) i had run git init. The correct Web instruction (for newbies like me) should have been

git clone https://github.com/veripool/verilog-mode

Answer 4

You can also get this error with any version of git if the remote branch was created after your last clone/fetch and your local repo doesn't know about it yet. I solved it by doing a git fetch first which "tells" your local repo about all the remote branches.

git fetch
git checkout test-branch

Answer 5

Following worked for me

git pull

Then checkout the required branch