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

-f, --force

--ours, --theirs

-b

-t, --track

--no-track

-l

-m, --merge

--conflict=<style>

-p, --patch

<branch>

<new_branch>

<start_point>

<tree-ish>

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¶

$ git checkout master             (1)
$ git checkout master~2 Makefile  (2)
$ rm -f hello.c
$ git checkout hello.c            (3)

$ git checkout -- hello.c

$ git checkout mytopic

$ git checkout mytopic
fatal: Entry ´frotz´ not uptodate. Cannot merge.

$ git checkout -m mytopic
Auto-merging frotz

$ git checkout -m mytopic
Auto-merging frotz
ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz
fatal: merge program failed

$ 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

2.

git@vger.kernel.org