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GIT-CHECKOUT(1)			  Git Manual		       GIT-CHECKOUT(1)

NAME
       git-checkout - Checkout a branch or paths to the working tree

SYNOPSIS
       git-checkout [-q] [-f] [[--track | --no-track] -b <new_branch> [-l]] [-m] [<branch>]
       git-checkout [<tree-ish>] <paths>...

DESCRIPTION
       When <paths> are not given, this command switches branches by updating
       the index and working tree to reflect the specified branch, <branch>,
       and updating HEAD to be <branch> or, if specified, <new_branch>. Using
       -b will cause <new_branch> to be created; in this case you can use the
       --track or --no-track options, which will be passed to git branch.

       When <paths> are given, this command does not switch branches. It
       updates the named paths in the working tree from the index file (i.e.
       it runs git-checkout-index -f -u), or from a named commit. In this
       case, the -f and -b options are meaningless and giving either of them
       results in an error. <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.

OPTIONS
       -q     Quiet, suppress feedback messages.

       -f     Proceed even if the index or the working tree differs from HEAD.
	      This is used to throw away local changes.

       -b     Create a new branch named <new_branch> and start it at <branch>.
	      The new branch name must pass all checks defined by
	      git-check-ref-format(1). Some of these checks may restrict the
	      characters allowed in a branch name.

       --track
	      When creating a new branch, set up configuration so that
	      git-pull will automatically retrieve data from the start point,
	      which must be a branch. Use this if you always pull from the
	      same upstream branch into the new branch, and if you don't want
	      to use "git pull <repository> <refspec>" explicitly. This
	      behavior is the default when the start point is a remote branch.
	      Set the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to false if
	      you want git-checkout and git-branch to always behave as if
	      --no-track were given. Set it to always if you want this
	      behavior when the start-point is either a local or remote
	      branch.

       --no-track
	      Ignore the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable.

       -l     Create the new branch's reflog. This activates recording of all
	      changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date based sha1
	      expressions such as "<branchname>@{yesterday}".

       -m     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).

       <new_branch>
	      Name for the new branch.

       <branch>
	      Branch to checkout; may be any object ID that resolves to a
	      commit. Defaults to HEAD.

	      When this parameter names a non-branch (but still a valid commit
	      object), your HEAD becomes detached.

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 -b option, but starting from version 1.5.0, the
       above command detaches your HEAD from the current branch and directly
       point at the commit named by the tag (v2.6.18 in the above example).

       You can use usual 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 out a file out of other commit
	  3. restore hello.c from HEAD of current branch

	  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 a 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 locally modified, 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
	  merge: warning: conflicts during merge
	  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>

DOCUMENTATION
       Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.

GIT
       Part of the git(7) suite

Git 1.5.5.2			  10/21/2008		       GIT-CHECKOUT(1)
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