First, clone a remote Git repository and cd into it:
$ git clone git://example.com/myproject
$ cd myproject
Next, look at the local branches in your repository:
$ git branch
* master
But there are other branches hiding in your repository! You can see these using the -a
flag:
$ git branch -a
* master
remotes/origin/HEAD
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/v1.0-stable
remotes/origin/experimental
If you just want to take a quick peek at an upstream branch, you can check it out directly:
$ git checkout origin/experimental
But if you want to work on that branch, you'll need to create a local tracking branch which is done automatically by:
$ git checkout experimental
and you will see
Branch experimental set up to track remote branch experimental from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'experimental'
Here, "new branch" simply means that the branch is taken from the index and created locally for you. As the previous line tells you, the branch is being set up to track the remote branch, which usually means the origin/branch_name branch.
Now, if you look at your local branches, this is what you'll see:
$ git branch
* experimental
master
You can actually track more than one remote repository using git remote
.
$ git remote add win32 git://example.com/users/joe/myproject-win32-port
$ git branch -a
* master
remotes/origin/HEAD
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/v1.0-stable
remotes/origin/experimental
remotes/win32/master
remotes/win32/new-widgets
At this point, things are getting pretty crazy, so run gitk
to see what's going on:
$ gitk --all &
Try: git mergetool
It opens a GUI that steps you through each conflict, and you get to choose how to merge. Sometimes it requires a bit of hand editing afterwards, but usually it's enough by itself. It is much better than doing the whole thing by hand certainly.
As per Josh Glover's comment:
The command
doesn't necessarily open a GUI unless you install one. Running git mergetool
for me resulted in vimdiff
being used. You can install
one of the following tools to use it instead: meld
, opendiff
,
kdiff3
, tkdiff
, xxdiff
, tortoisemerge
, gvimdiff
, diffuse
,
ecmerge
, p4merge
, araxis
, vimdiff
, emerge
.
Below is the sample procedure to use vimdiff
for resolve merge conflicts. Based on this link
Step 1: Run following commands in your terminal
git config merge.tool vimdiff
git config merge.conflictstyle diff3
git config mergetool.prompt false
This will set vimdiff as the default merge tool.
Step 2: Run following command in terminal
git mergetool
Step 3: You will see a vimdiff display in following format
╔═══════╦══════╦════════╗
║ ║ ║ ║
║ LOCAL ║ BASE ║ REMOTE ║
║ ║ ║ ║
╠═══════╩══════╩════════╣
║ ║
║ MERGED ║
║ ║
╚═══════════════════════╝
These 4 views are
LOCAL – this is file from the current branch
BASE – common ancestor, how file looked before both changes
REMOTE – file you are merging into your branch
MERGED – merge result, this is what gets saved in the repo
You can navigate among these views using ctrl+w. You can directly reach MERGED view using ctrl+w followed by j.
More information about vimdiff navigation is here and here.
Step 4. You could edit the MERGED view the following way
If you want to get changes from REMOTE
:diffg RE
If you want to get changes from BASE
:diffg BA
If you want to get changes from LOCAL
:diffg LO
Step 5. Save, Exit, Commit and Clean up
:wqa
save and exit from vi
git commit -m "message"
git clean
Remove extra files (e.g. *.orig) created by diff tool.
Best Answer
This worked for me:
git clone https://username@github.com/username/repo_name