NAME
git-checkout - Checkout a branch or paths to the working tree
SYNOPSIS
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [<branch>]
git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [-b <new_branch>] [<start_point>]
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>] [--] <paths>...
git checkout --patch [<tree-ish>] [--] [<paths>...]
DESCRIPTION
When <paths> are not given, this command switches branches by updating
the index, working tree, and HEAD to reflect the specified branch.
If -b is given, a new branch is created and checked out, as if git-
branch(1) were called; in this case you can use the --track or
--no-track options, which will be passed to git branch. As a
convenience, --track without -b implies branch creation; see the
description of --track below.
When <paths> or --patch are given, this command does not switch
branches. It updates the named paths in the working tree from the index
file, or from a named <tree-ish> (most often a commit). In this case,
the -b and --track options are meaningless and giving either of them
results in an error. The <tree-ish> argument can be used to specify a
specific tree-ish (i.e. commit, tag or tree) to update the index for
the given paths before updating the working tree.
The index may contain unmerged entries after a failed merge. By
default, if you try to check out such an entry from the index, the
checkout operation will fail and nothing will be checked out. Using -f
will ignore these unmerged entries. The contents from a specific side
of the merge can be checked out of the index by using --ours or
--theirs. With -m, changes made to the working tree file can be
discarded to recreate the original conflicted merge result.
OPTIONS
-q, --quiet
Quiet, suppress feedback messages.
-f, --force
When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the working
tree differs from HEAD. This is used to throw away local changes.
When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged
entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored.
--ours, --theirs
When checking out paths from the index, check out stage #2 (ours)
or #3 (theirs) for unmerged paths.
-b
Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at
<start_point>; see git-branch(1) for details.
-t, --track
When creating a new branch, set up "upstream" configuration. See
"--track" in git-branch(1) for details.
If no -b option is given, the name of the new branch will be
derived from the remote branch. If "remotes/" or "refs/remotes/" is
prefixed it is stripped away, and then the part up to the next
slash (which would be the nickname of the remote) is removed. This
would tell us to use "hack" as the local branch when branching off
of "origin/hack" (or "remotes/origin/hack", or even
"refs/remotes/origin/hack"). If the given name has no slash, or the
above guessing results in an empty name, the guessing is aborted.
You can explicitly give a name with -b in such a case.
--no-track
Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the
branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable is true.
-l
Create the new branch's reflog; see git-branch(1) for details.
-m, --merge
When switching branches, if you have local modifications to one or
more files that are different between the current branch and the
branch to which you are switching, the command refuses to switch
branches in order to preserve your modifications in context.
However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current
branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch is done, and
you will be on the new branch.
When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting
paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts and
mark the resolved paths with git add (or git rm if the merge should
result in deletion of the path).
When checking out paths from the index, this option lets you
recreate the conflicted merge in the specified paths.
--conflict=<style>
The same as --merge option above, but changes the way the
conflicting hunks are presented, overriding the merge.conflictstyle
configuration variable. Possible values are "merge" (default) and
"diff3" (in addition to what is shown by "merge" style, shows the
original contents).
-p, --patch
Interactively select hunks in the difference between the <tree-ish>
(or the index, if unspecified) and the working tree. The chosen
hunks are then applied in reverse to the working tree (and if a
<tree-ish> was specified, the index).
This means that you can use git checkout -p to selectively discard
edits from your current working tree.
<branch>
Branch to checkout; if it refers to a branch (i.e., a name that,
when prepended with "refs/heads/", is a valid ref), then that
branch is checked out. Otherwise, if it refers to a valid commit,
your HEAD becomes "detached" and you are no longer on any branch
(see below for details).
As a special case, the "@{-N}" syntax for the N-th last branch
checks out the branch (instead of detaching). You may also specify
- which is synonymous with "@{-1}".
<new_branch>
Name for the new branch.
<start_point>
The name of a commit at which to start the new branch; see git-
branch(1) for details. Defaults to HEAD.
<tree-ish>
Tree to checkout from (when paths are given). If not specified, the
index will be used.
DETACHED HEAD
It is sometimes useful to be able to checkout a commit that is not at
the tip of one of your branches. The most obvious example is to check
out the commit at a tagged official release point, like this:
$ git checkout v2.6.18
Earlier versions of git did not allow this and asked you to create a
temporary branch using the -b option, but starting from version 1.5.0,
the above command detaches your HEAD from the current branch and
directly points at the commit named by the tag (v2.6.18 in the example
above).
You can use all git commands while in this state. You can use git reset
--hard $othercommit to further move around, for example. You can make
changes and create a new commit on top of a detached HEAD. You can even
create a merge by using git merge $othercommit.
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached is not recorded by any
branch (which is natural --- you are not on any branch). What this
means is that you can discard your temporary commits and merges by
switching back to an existing branch (e.g. git checkout master), and a
later git prune or git gc would garbage-collect them. If you did this
by mistake, you can ask the reflog for HEAD where you were, e.g.
$ git log -g -2 HEAD
EXAMPLES
1. The following sequence checks out the master branch, reverts the
Makefile to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by mistake, and
gets it back from the index.
$ git checkout master (1)
$ git checkout master~2 Makefile (2)
$ rm -f hello.c
$ git checkout hello.c (3)
1. switch branch
2. take a file out of another commit
3. restore hello.c from the index
If you have an unfortunate branch that is named hello.c, this step
would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. You
should instead write:
$ git checkout -- hello.c
2. After working in the wrong branch, switching to the correct branch
would be done using:
$ git checkout mytopic
However, your "wrong" branch and correct "mytopic" branch may
differ in files that you have modified locally, in which case the
above checkout would fail like this:
$ git checkout mytopic
fatal: Entry 'frotz' not uptodate. Cannot merge.
You can give the -m flag to the command, which would try a
three-way merge:
$ git checkout -m mytopic
Auto-merging frotz
After this three-way merge, the local modifications are not
registered in your index file, so git diff would show you what
changes you made since the tip of the new branch.
3. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with the -m
option, you would see something like this:
$ git checkout -m mytopic
Auto-merging frotz
ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz
fatal: merge program failed
At this point, git diff shows the changes cleanly merged as in the
previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted files.
Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with git add as
usual:
$ edit frotz
$ git add frotz
AUTHOR
Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org[1]>
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list
<git@vger.kernel.org[2]>.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. torvalds@osdl.org
mailto:torvalds@osdl.org
2. git@vger.kernel.org
mailto:git@vger.kernel.org