git fetch

By / git, programming / 2 minutes of reading

git fetch downloads the files, commits, tags, and branches from the remote repository to your local machine without overwriting any of your existing local code in the current branch.

it also grabs a record of all remote repository changes, so you can see any updates and differences before actually pulling down (and overwriting) what you have been working on.

git fetch is a great way to avoid merge conflicts, because you’re able to spot & address any potential issues before you merge them.

syntax

git fetch has a number of different options that can be used with it.

git fetch options

git fetch <options> <remote-name> <branch-name>

for a list of all the options available with git fetch run the following command in the shell:

git fetch --help

workflow

use git fetch to retrieve the latest iteration of your project from the remote repository and examine any updates, changes, etc. from your current copy of project files.

when you’re ready to get your repository up-to-date with the remote repository (so you can push up any changes you’ve made, or just start working with the most updated version) use git merge to combine the fetched data with yours.

this makes git fetch a great way to avoid merge conflicts while collaborating with a team, because you’re able to spot any potential problems and address them before you merge codebases.

example:

git fetch origin
the result of a git fetch origin command on in the shell

here we ran a git fetch origin to fetch the repo origin.

a simple git fetch would have done the same thing, as it default to the origin if you don’t specify a branch.

to fetch a specific branch, run:

git fetch <remote-name> <branch-name>

like:

git fetch origin test-branch
the result of a git fetch command at the command line

there was no test-branch in this repository, but you can see the command was successfully executed.

git fetch to get your local repository in sync

here are the steps to take for getting your local repository in sync with the remote repository.

1. git fetch to fetch the remote repository:

2. git log to compare your local branch with the remote:

3. git checkout to checkout the local branch where you’ll be merging the changes to:

4. git merge to merge the changes

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