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GIT-FETCH(1) | Git Manual | GIT-FETCH(1) |
NAME¶
git-fetch - Download objects and refs from another repositorySYNOPSIS¶
git fetch [<options>] [<repository> [<refspec>...]] git fetch [<options>] <group> git fetch --multiple [<options>] [(<repository> | <group>)...] git fetch --all [<options>]
DESCRIPTION¶
Fetch branches and/or tags (collectively, "refs") from one or more other repositories, along with the objects necessary to complete their histories. Remote-tracking branches are updated (see the description of <refspec> below for ways to control this behavior). By default, any tag that points into the histories being fetched is also fetched; the effect is to fetch tags that point at branches that you are interested in. This default behavior can be changed by using the --tags or --no-tags options or by configuring remote.<name>.tagopt. By using a refspec that fetches tags explicitly, you can fetch tags that do not point into branches you are interested in as well. git fetch can fetch from either a single named repository or URL, or from several repositories at once if <group> is given and there is a remotes.<group> entry in the configuration file. (See git-config(1)). When no remote is specified, by default the origin remote will be used, unless there’s an upstream branch configured for the current branch. The names of refs that are fetched, together with the object names they point at, are written to .git/FETCH_HEAD. This information may be used by scripts or other git commands, such as git-pull(1).OPTIONS¶
--allFetch all remotes.
-a, --append
Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the
existing contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old data in
.git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.
--depth=<depth>
Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow
repository created by git clone with --depth=<depth> option (see
git-clone(1)) to the specified number of commits from the tip of each
remote branch history. Tags for the deepened commits are not fetched.
--unshallow
If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow
repository to a complete one, removing all the limitations imposed by shallow
repositories.
If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as possible so that the
current repository has the same history as the source repository.
--update-shallow
By default when fetching from a shallow repository, git
fetch refuses refs that require updating .git/shallow. This option updates
.git/shallow and accept such refs.
--dry-run
Show what would be done, without making any
changes.
-f, --force
When git fetch is used with
<rbranch>:<lbranch> refspec, it refuses to update the local branch
<lbranch> unless the remote branch <rbranch> it fetches is a
descendant of <lbranch>. This option overrides that check.
-k, --keep
Keep downloaded pack.
--multiple
Allow several <repository> and <group>
arguments to be specified. No <refspec>s may be specified.
-p, --prune
After fetching, remove any remote-tracking references
that no longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to pruning if they
are fetched only because of the default tag auto-following or due to a --tags
option. However, if tags are fetched due to an explicit refspec (either on the
command line or in the remote configuration, for example if the remote was
cloned with the --mirror option), then they are also subject to pruning.
-n, --no-tags
By default, tags that point at objects that are
downloaded from the remote repository are fetched and stored locally. This
option disables this automatic tag following. The default behavior for a
remote may be specified with the remote.<name>.tagopt setting. See
git-config(1).
--refmap=<refspec>
When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the
specified refspec (can be given more than once) to map the refs to
remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of remote.*.fetch
configuration variables for the remote repository. See section on
"Configured Remote-tracking Branches" for details.
-t, --tags
Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags
refs/tags/* into local tags with the same name), in addition to whatever else
would otherwise be fetched. Using this option alone does not subject tags to
pruning, even if --prune is used (though tags may be pruned anyway if they are
also the destination of an explicit refspec; see --prune).
--recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
This option controls if and under what conditions new
commits of populated submodules should be fetched too. It can be used as a
boolean option to completely disable recursion when set to no or to
unconditionally recurse into all populated submodules when set to yes,
which is the default when this option is used without any value. Use
on-demand to only recurse into a populated submodule when the
superproject retrieves a commit that updates the submodule’s reference
to a commit that isn’t already in the local submodule clone.
--no-recurse-submodules
Disable recursive fetching of submodules (this has the
same effect as using the --recurse-submodules=no option).
--submodule-prefix=<path>
Prepend <path> to paths printed in informative
messages such as "Fetching submodule foo". This option is used
internally when recursing over submodules.
--recurse-submodules-default=[yes|on-demand]
This option is used internally to temporarily provide a
non-negative default value for the --recurse-submodules option. All other
methods of configuring fetch’s submodule recursion (such as settings in
gitmodules(5) and git-config(1)) override this option, as does
specifying --[no-]recurse-submodules directly.
-u, --update-head-ok
By default git fetch refuses to update the head
which corresponds to the current branch. This flag disables the check. This is
purely for the internal use for git pull to communicate with git
fetch, and unless you are implementing your own Porcelain you are not
supposed to use it.
--upload-pack <upload-pack>
When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled
by git fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the
command to specify non-default path for the command run on the other
end.
-q, --quiet
Pass --quiet to git-fetch-pack and silence any other
internally used git commands. Progress is not reported to the standard error
stream.
-v, --verbose
Be verbose.
--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream
by default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is specified. This
flag forces progress status even if the standard error stream is not directed
to a terminal.
<repository>
The "remote" repository that is the source of a
fetch or pull operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the section
GIT URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the section REMOTES below).
<group>
A name referring to a list of repositories as the value
of remotes.<group> in the configuration file. (See
git-config(1)).
<refspec>
Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to
update. When no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to fetch
are read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables instead (see
CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES below).
The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +, followed by the
source ref <src>, followed by a colon :, followed by the destination ref
<dst>. The colon can be omitted when <dst> is empty.
tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>;
it requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is not
empty string, the local ref that matches it is fast-forwarded using
<src>. If the optional plus + is used, the local ref is updated even if
it does not result in a fast-forward update.
Note
When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be rewound and rebased
regularly, it is expected that its new tip will not be descendant of its
previous tip (as stored in your remote-tracking branch the last time you
fetched). You would want to use the + sign to indicate non-fast-forward
updates will be needed for such branches. There is no way to determine or
declare that a branch will be made available in a repository with this
behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is the expected usage pattern
for a branch.
GIT URLS¶
In general, URLs contain information about the transport protocol, the address of the remote server, and the path to the repository. Depending on the transport protocol, some of this information may be absent. Git supports ssh, git, http, and https protocols (in addition, ftp, and ftps can be used for fetching and rsync can be used for fetching and pushing, but these are inefficient and deprecated; do not use them). The native transport (i.e. git:// URL) does no authentication and should be used with caution on unsecured networks. The following syntaxes may be used with them:•ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
•git://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
•http[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
•ftp[s]://host.xz[:port]/path/to/repo.git/
•rsync://host.xz/path/to/repo.git/
An alternative scp-like syntax may also be used with the ssh protocol:
•[user@]host.xz:path/to/repo.git/
This syntax is only recognized if there are no slashes before the first colon.
This helps differentiate a local path that contains a colon. For example the
local path foo:bar could be specified as an absolute path or ./foo:bar to
avoid being misinterpreted as an ssh url.
The ssh and git protocols additionally support ~username expansion:
•ssh://[user@]host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
•git://host.xz[:port]/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
•[user@]host.xz:/~[user]/path/to/repo.git/
For local repositories, also supported by Git natively, the following syntaxes
may be used:
•/path/to/repo.git/
•file:///path/to/repo.git/
These two syntaxes are mostly equivalent, except when cloning, when the former
implies --local option. See git-clone(1) for details.
When Git doesn’t know how to handle a certain transport protocol, it
attempts to use the remote-<transport> remote helper, if one
exists. To explicitly request a remote helper, the following syntax may be
used:
•<transport>::<address>
where <address> may be a path, a server and path, or an arbitrary URL-like
string recognized by the specific remote helper being invoked. See
gitremote-helpers(1) for details.
If there are a large number of similarly-named remote repositories and you want
to use a different format for them (such that the URLs you use will be
rewritten into URLs that work), you can create a configuration section of the
form:
[url "<actual url base>"] insteadOf = <other url base>
[url "git://git.host.xz/"] insteadOf = host.xz:/path/to/ insteadOf = work:
[url "<actual url base>"] pushInsteadOf = <other url base>
[url "ssh://example.org/"] pushInsteadOf = git://example.org/
REMOTES¶
The name of one of the following can be used instead of a URL as <repository> argument:•a remote in the Git configuration file:
$GIT_DIR/config,
•a file in the $GIT_DIR/remotes directory,
or
•a file in the $GIT_DIR/branches directory.
All of these also allow you to omit the refspec from the command line because
they each contain a refspec which git will use by default.
Named remote in configuration file¶
You can choose to provide the name of a remote which you had previously configured using git-remote(1), git-config(1) or even by a manual edit to the $GIT_DIR/config file. The URL of this remote will be used to access the repository. The refspec of this remote will be used by default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. The entry in the config file would appear like this:[remote "<name>"] url = <url> pushurl = <pushurl> push = <refspec> fetch = <refspec>
Named file in $GIT_DIR/remotes¶
You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/remotes. The URL in this file will be used to access the repository. The refspec in this file will be used as default when you do not provide a refspec on the command line. This file should have the following format:URL: one of the above URL format Push: <refspec> Pull: <refspec>
Named file in $GIT_DIR/branches¶
You can choose to provide the name of a file in $GIT_DIR/branches. The URL in this file will be used to access the repository. This file should have the following format:<url>#<head>
refs/heads/<head>:refs/heads/<branch>
HEAD:refs/heads/<head>
CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING BRANCHES¶
You often interact with the same remote repository by regularly and repeatedly fetching from it. In order to keep track of the progress of such a remote repository, git fetch allows you to configure remote.<repository>.fetch configuration variables. Typically such a variable may look like this:[remote "origin"] fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
•When git fetch is run without specifying what
branches and/or tags to fetch on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin or
git fetch, remote.<repository>.fetch values are used as the
refspecs---they specify which refs to fetch and which local refs to update.
The example above will fetch all branches that exist in the origin (i.e. any
ref that matches the left-hand side of the value, refs/heads/*) and update the
corresponding remote-tracking branches in the refs/remotes/origin/*
hierarchy.
•When git fetch is run with explicit branches
and/or tags to fetch on the command line, e.g. git fetch origin master, the
<refspec>s given on the command line determine what are to be fetched
(e.g. master in the example, which is a short-hand for master:, which in turn
means "fetch the master branch but I do not explicitly say what
remote-tracking branch to update with it from the command line"), and the
example command will fetch only the master branch. The
remote.<repository>.fetch values determine which remote-tracking branch,
if any, is updated. When used in this way, the remote.<repository>.fetch
values do not have any effect in deciding what gets fetched (i.e. the
values are not used as refspecs when the command-line lists refspecs); they
are only used to decide where the refs that are fetched are stored by
acting as a mapping.
The latter use of the remote.<repository>.fetch values can be overridden
by giving the --refmap=<refspec> parameter(s) on the command line.
EXAMPLES¶
•Update the remote-tracking branches:
The above command copies all branches from the remote refs/heads/ namespace and
stores them to the local refs/remotes/origin/ namespace, unless the
branch.<name>.fetch option is used to specify a non-default
refspec.
$ git fetch origin
•Using refspecs explicitly:
This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches pu and tmp in the local
repository by fetching from the branches (respectively) pu and maint from the
remote repository.
The pu branch will be updated even if it is does not fast-forward, because it is
prefixed with a plus sign; tmp will not be.
$ git fetch origin +pu:pu maint:tmp
•Peek at a remote’s branch, without
configuring the remote in your local repository:
The first command fetches the maint branch from the repository at
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and the second command uses
FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with git-log(1). The fetched objects
will eventually be removed by git’s built-in housekeeping (see
git-gc(1)).
$ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint $ git log FETCH_HEAD
BUGS¶
Using --recurse-submodules can only fetch new commits in already checked out submodules right now. When e.g. upstream added a new submodule in the just fetched commits of the superproject the submodule itself can not be fetched, making it impossible to check out that submodule later without having to do a fetch again. This is expected to be fixed in a future Git version.SEE ALSO¶
git-pull(1)GIT¶
Part of the git(1) suite05/28/2018 | Git 2.1.4 |