1GIT-CHECKOUT(1) Git Manual GIT-CHECKOUT(1)
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6 git-checkout - Switch branches or restore working tree files
7
9 git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [<branch>]
10 git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] --detach [<branch>]
11 git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [--detach] <commit>
12 git checkout [-q] [-f] [-m] [[-b|-B|--orphan] <new-branch>] [<start-point>]
13 git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>...
14 git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>] --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
15 git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
16
18 Updates files in the working tree to match the version in the index or
19 the specified tree. If no pathspec was given, git checkout will also
20 update HEAD to set the specified branch as the current branch.
21 git checkout [<branch>]
23 To prepare for working on <branch>, switch to it by updating the
24 index and the files in the working tree, and by pointing HEAD at
25 the branch. Local modifications to the files in the working tree
26 are kept, so that they can be committed to the <branch>.
27 If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in
29 exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name and
30 --no-guess is not specified, treat as equivalent to
31 $ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>
33 You could omit <branch>, in which case the command degenerates to
35 "check out the current branch", which is a glorified no-op with
36 rather expensive side-effects to show only the tracking
37 information, if exists, for the current branch.
38 git checkout -b|-B <new-branch> [<start-point>]
40 Specifying -b causes a new branch to be created as if git-branch(1)
41 were called and then checked out. In this case you can use the
42 --track or --no-track options, which will be passed to git branch.
43 As a convenience, --track without -b implies branch creation; see
44 the description of --track below.
45 If -B is given, <new-branch> is created if it doesn’t exist;
47 otherwise, it is reset. This is the transactional equivalent of
48 $ git branch -f <branch> [<start-point>]
50 $ git checkout <branch>
51 that is to say, the branch is not reset/created unless "git
53 checkout" is successful.
54 git checkout --detach [<branch>], git checkout [--detach] <commit>
56 Prepare to work on top of <commit>, by detaching HEAD at it (see
57 "DETACHED HEAD" section), and updating the index and the files in
58 the working tree. Local modifications to the files in the working
59 tree are kept, so that the resulting working tree will be the state
60 recorded in the commit plus the local modifications.
61 When the <commit> argument is a branch name, the --detach option
63 can be used to detach HEAD at the tip of the branch (git checkout
64 <branch> would check out that branch without detaching HEAD).
65 Omitting <branch> detaches HEAD at the tip of the current branch.
67 git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>]
69 [--] <pathspec>..., git checkout
70 [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>]
71 --pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
72 Overwrite the contents of the files that match the pathspec. When
73 the <tree-ish> (most often a commit) is not given, overwrite
74 working tree with the contents in the index. When the <tree-ish> is
75 given, overwrite both the index and the working tree with the
76 contents at the <tree-ish>.
77 The index may contain unmerged entries because of a previous failed
79 merge. By default, if you try to check out such an entry from the
80 index, the checkout operation will fail and nothing will be checked
81 out. Using -f will ignore these unmerged entries. The contents from
82 a specific side of the merge can be checked out of the index by
83 using --ours or --theirs. With -m, changes made to the working tree
84 file can be discarded to re-create the original conflicted merge
85 result.
86 git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
88 This is similar to the previous mode, but lets you use the
89 interactive interface to show the "diff" output and choose which
90 hunks to use in the result. See below for the description of
91 --patch option.
92
94 -q, --quiet
95 Quiet, suppress feedback messages.
96 --progress, --no-progress
98 Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by default
99 when it is attached to a terminal, unless --quiet is specified.
100 This flag enables progress reporting even if not attached to a
101 terminal, regardless of --quiet.
102 -f, --force
104 When switching branches, proceed even if the index or the working
105 tree differs from HEAD, and even if there are untracked files in
106 the way. This is used to throw away local changes and any untracked
107 files or directories that are in the way.
108 When checking out paths from the index, do not fail upon unmerged
110 entries; instead, unmerged entries are ignored.
111 --ours, --theirs
113 When checking out paths from the index, check out stage #2 (ours)
114 or #3 (theirs) for unmerged paths.
115 Note that during git rebase and git pull --rebase, ours and theirs
117 may appear swapped; --ours gives the version from the branch the
118 changes are rebased onto, while --theirs gives the version from the
119 branch that holds your work that is being rebased.
120 This is because rebase is used in a workflow that treats the
122 history at the remote as the shared canonical one, and treats the
123 work done on the branch you are rebasing as the third-party work to
124 be integrated, and you are temporarily assuming the role of the
125 keeper of the canonical history during the rebase. As the keeper of
126 the canonical history, you need to view the history from the remote
127 as ours (i.e. "our shared canonical history"), while what you did
128 on your side branch as theirs (i.e. "one contributor’s work on top
129 of it").
130 -b <new-branch>
132 Create a new branch named <new-branch> and start it at
133 <start-point>; see git-branch(1) for details.
134 -B <new-branch>
136 Creates the branch <new-branch> and start it at <start-point>; if
137 it already exists, then reset it to <start-point>. This is
138 equivalent to running "git branch" with "-f"; see git-branch(1) for
139 details.
140 -t, --track[=(direct|inherit)]
142 When creating a new branch, set up "upstream" configuration. See
143 "--track" in git-branch(1) for details.
144 If no -b option is given, the name of the new branch will be
146 derived from the remote-tracking branch, by looking at the local
147 part of the refspec configured for the corresponding remote, and
148 then stripping the initial part up to the "*". This would tell us
149 to use hack as the local branch when branching off of origin/hack
150 (or remotes/origin/hack, or even refs/remotes/origin/hack). If the
151 given name has no slash, or the above guessing results in an empty
152 name, the guessing is aborted. You can explicitly give a name with
153 -b in such a case.
154 --no-track
156 Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the
157 branch.autoSetupMerge configuration variable is true.
158 --guess, --no-guess
160 If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking branch in
161 exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a matching name, treat
162 as equivalent to
163 $ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>
165 If the branch exists in multiple remotes and one of them is named
167 by the checkout.defaultRemote configuration variable, we’ll use
168 that one for the purposes of disambiguation, even if the <branch>
169 isn’t unique across all remotes. Set it to e.g.
170 checkout.defaultRemote=origin to always checkout remote branches
171 from there if <branch> is ambiguous but exists on the origin
172 remote. See also checkout.defaultRemote in git-config(1).
173 --guess is the default behavior. Use --no-guess to disable it.
175 The default behavior can be set via the checkout.guess
177 configuration variable.
178 -l
180 Create the new branch’s reflog; see git-branch(1) for details.
181 -d, --detach
183 Rather than checking out a branch to work on it, check out a commit
184 for inspection and discardable experiments. This is the default
185 behavior of git checkout <commit> when <commit> is not a branch
186 name. See the "DETACHED HEAD" section below for details.
187 --orphan <new-branch>
189 Create a new orphan branch, named <new-branch>, started from
190 <start-point> and switch to it. The first commit made on this new
191 branch will have no parents and it will be the root of a new
192 history totally disconnected from all the other branches and
193 commits.
194 The index and the working tree are adjusted as if you had
196 previously run git checkout <start-point>. This allows you to start
197 a new history that records a set of paths similar to <start-point>
198 by easily running git commit -a to make the root commit.
199 This can be useful when you want to publish the tree from a commit
201 without exposing its full history. You might want to do this to
202 publish an open source branch of a project whose current tree is
203 "clean", but whose full history contains proprietary or otherwise
204 encumbered bits of code.
205 If you want to start a disconnected history that records a set of
207 paths that is totally different from the one of <start-point>, then
208 you should clear the index and the working tree right after
209 creating the orphan branch by running git rm -rf . from the top
210 level of the working tree. Afterwards you will be ready to prepare
211 your new files, repopulating the working tree, by copying them from
212 elsewhere, extracting a tarball, etc.
213 --ignore-skip-worktree-bits
215 In sparse checkout mode, git checkout -- <paths> would update only
216 entries matched by <paths> and sparse patterns in
217 $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout. This option ignores the sparse
218 patterns and adds back any files in <paths>.
219 -m, --merge
221 When switching branches, if you have local modifications to one or
222 more files that are different between the current branch and the
223 branch to which you are switching, the command refuses to switch
224 branches in order to preserve your modifications in context.
225 However, with this option, a three-way merge between the current
226 branch, your working tree contents, and the new branch is done, and
227 you will be on the new branch.
228 When a merge conflict happens, the index entries for conflicting
230 paths are left unmerged, and you need to resolve the conflicts and
231 mark the resolved paths with git add (or git rm if the merge should
232 result in deletion of the path).
233 When checking out paths from the index, this option lets you
235 recreate the conflicted merge in the specified paths.
236 When switching branches with --merge, staged changes may be lost.
238 --conflict=<style>
240 The same as --merge option above, but changes the way the
241 conflicting hunks are presented, overriding the merge.conflictStyle
242 configuration variable. Possible values are "merge" (default),
243 "diff3", and "zdiff3".
244 -p, --patch
246 Interactively select hunks in the difference between the <tree-ish>
247 (or the index, if unspecified) and the working tree. The chosen
248 hunks are then applied in reverse to the working tree (and if a
249 <tree-ish> was specified, the index).
250 This means that you can use git checkout -p to selectively discard
252 edits from your current working tree. See the “Interactive Mode”
253 section of git-add(1) to learn how to operate the --patch mode.
254 Note that this option uses the no overlay mode by default (see also
256 --overlay), and currently doesn’t support overlay mode.
257 --ignore-other-worktrees
259 git checkout refuses when the wanted ref is already checked out by
260 another worktree. This option makes it check the ref out anyway. In
261 other words, the ref can be held by more than one worktree.
262 --overwrite-ignore, --no-overwrite-ignore
264 Silently overwrite ignored files when switching branches. This is
265 the default behavior. Use --no-overwrite-ignore to abort the
266 operation when the new branch contains ignored files.
267 --recurse-submodules, --no-recurse-submodules
269 Using --recurse-submodules will update the content of all active
270 submodules according to the commit recorded in the superproject. If
271 local modifications in a submodule would be overwritten the
272 checkout will fail unless -f is used. If nothing (or
273 --no-recurse-submodules) is used, submodules working trees will not
274 be updated. Just like git-submodule(1), this will detach HEAD of
275 the submodule.
276 --overlay, --no-overlay
278 In the default overlay mode, git checkout never removes files from
279 the index or the working tree. When specifying --no-overlay, files
280 that appear in the index and working tree, but not in <tree-ish>
281 are removed, to make them match <tree-ish> exactly.
282 --pathspec-from-file=<file>
284 Pathspec is passed in <file> instead of commandline args. If <file>
285 is exactly - then standard input is used. Pathspec elements are
286 separated by LF or CR/LF. Pathspec elements can be quoted as
287 explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
288 config(1)). See also --pathspec-file-nul and global
289 --literal-pathspecs.
290 --pathspec-file-nul
292 Only meaningful with --pathspec-from-file. Pathspec elements are
293 separated with NUL character and all other characters are taken
294 literally (including newlines and quotes).
295 <branch>
297 Branch to checkout; if it refers to a branch (i.e., a name that,
298 when prepended with "refs/heads/", is a valid ref), then that
299 branch is checked out. Otherwise, if it refers to a valid commit,
300 your HEAD becomes "detached" and you are no longer on any branch
301 (see below for details).
302 You can use the @{-N} syntax to refer to the N-th last
304 branch/commit checked out using "git checkout" operation. You may
305 also specify - which is synonymous to @{-1}.
306 As a special case, you may use A...B as a shortcut for the merge
308 base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave
309 out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
310 <new-branch>
312 Name for the new branch.
313 <start-point>
315 The name of a commit at which to start the new branch; see git-
316 branch(1) for details. Defaults to HEAD.
317 As a special case, you may use "A...B" as a shortcut for the merge
319 base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave
320 out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
321 <tree-ish>
323 Tree to checkout from (when paths are given). If not specified, the
324 index will be used.
325 As a special case, you may use "A...B" as a shortcut for the merge
327 base of A and B if there is exactly one merge base. You can leave
328 out at most one of A and B, in which case it defaults to HEAD.
329 --
331 Do not interpret any more arguments as options.
332 <pathspec>...
334 Limits the paths affected by the operation.
335 For more details, see the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).
337
339 HEAD normally refers to a named branch (e.g. master). Meanwhile, each
340 branch refers to a specific commit. Let’s look at a repo with three
341 commits, one of them tagged, and with branch master checked out:
342 HEAD (refers to branch 'master')
344 |
345 v
346 a---b---c branch 'master' (refers to commit 'c')
347 ^
348 |
349 tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
350 When a commit is created in this state, the branch is updated to refer
352 to the new commit. Specifically, git commit creates a new commit d,
353 whose parent is commit c, and then updates branch master to refer to
354 new commit d. HEAD still refers to branch master and so indirectly now
355 refers to commit d:
356 $ edit; git add; git commit
358 HEAD (refers to branch 'master')
360 |
361 v
362 a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
363 ^
364 |
365 tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
366 It is sometimes useful to be able to checkout a commit that is not at
368 the tip of any named branch, or even to create a new commit that is not
369 referenced by a named branch. Let’s look at what happens when we
370 checkout commit b (here we show two ways this may be done):
371 $ git checkout v2.0 # or
373 $ git checkout master^^
374 HEAD (refers to commit 'b')
376 |
377 v
378 a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
379 ^
380 |
381 tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
382 Notice that regardless of which checkout command we use, HEAD now
384 refers directly to commit b. This is known as being in detached HEAD
385 state. It means simply that HEAD refers to a specific commit, as
386 opposed to referring to a named branch. Let’s see what happens when we
387 create a commit:
388 $ edit; git add; git commit
390 HEAD (refers to commit 'e')
392 |
393 v
394 e
395 /
396 a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
397 ^
398 |
399 tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
400 There is now a new commit e, but it is referenced only by HEAD. We can
402 of course add yet another commit in this state:
403 $ edit; git add; git commit
405 HEAD (refers to commit 'f')
407 |
408 v
409 e---f
410 /
411 a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
412 ^
413 |
414 tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
415 In fact, we can perform all the normal Git operations. But, let’s look
417 at what happens when we then checkout master:
418 $ git checkout master
420 HEAD (refers to branch 'master')
422 e---f |
423 / v
424 a---b---c---d branch 'master' (refers to commit 'd')
425 ^
426 |
427 tag 'v2.0' (refers to commit 'b')
428 It is important to realize that at this point nothing refers to commit
430 f. Eventually commit f (and by extension commit e) will be deleted by
431 the routine Git garbage collection process, unless we create a
432 reference before that happens. If we have not yet moved away from
433 commit f, any of these will create a reference to it:
434 $ git checkout -b foo [1m(1)
436 $ git branch foo [1m(2)
437 $ git tag foo [1m(3)
438 1. creates a new branch foo, which refers to commit f, and
441 then updates HEAD to refer to branch foo. In other words,
442 we’ll no longer be in detached HEAD state after this
443 command.
444 2. similarly creates a new branch foo, which refers to commit
445 f, but leaves HEAD detached.
446 3. creates a new tag foo, which refers to commit f, leaving
447 HEAD detached.
448 If we have moved away from commit f, then we must first recover its
450 object name (typically by using git reflog), and then we can create a
451 reference to it. For example, to see the last two commits to which HEAD
452 referred, we can use either of these commands:
453 $ git reflog -2 HEAD # or
455 $ git log -g -2 HEAD
456
458 When there is only one argument given and it is not -- (e.g. git
459 checkout abc), and when the argument is both a valid <tree-ish> (e.g. a
460 branch abc exists) and a valid <pathspec> (e.g. a file or a directory
461 whose name is "abc" exists), Git would usually ask you to disambiguate.
462 Because checking out a branch is so common an operation, however, git
463 checkout abc takes "abc" as a <tree-ish> in such a situation. Use git
464 checkout -- <pathspec> if you want to checkout these paths out of the
465 index.
466
468 1. The following sequence checks out the master branch, reverts the
469 Makefile to two revisions back, deletes hello.c by mistake, and
470 gets it back from the index.
471 $ git checkout master [1m(1)
473 $ git checkout master~2 Makefile [1m(2)
474 $ rm -f hello.c
475 $ git checkout hello.c [1m(3)
476 1. switch branch
479 2. take a file out of another commit
480 3. restore hello.c from the index
481 If you want to check out all C source files out of the index, you
482 can say
483 $ git checkout -- '*.c'
485 Note the quotes around *.c. The file hello.c will also be checked
487 out, even though it is no longer in the working tree, because the
488 file globbing is used to match entries in the index (not in the
489 working tree by the shell).
490 If you have an unfortunate branch that is named hello.c, this step
492 would be confused as an instruction to switch to that branch. You
493 should instead write:
494 $ git checkout -- hello.c
496 2. After working in the wrong branch, switching to the correct branch
498 would be done using:
499 $ git checkout mytopic
501 However, your "wrong" branch and correct mytopic branch may differ
503 in files that you have modified locally, in which case the above
504 checkout would fail like this:
505 $ git checkout mytopic
507 error: You have local changes to 'frotz'; not switching branches.
508 You can give the -m flag to the command, which would try a
510 three-way merge:
511 $ git checkout -m mytopic
513 Auto-merging frotz
514 After this three-way merge, the local modifications are not
516 registered in your index file, so git diff would show you what
517 changes you made since the tip of the new branch.
518 3. When a merge conflict happens during switching branches with the -m
520 option, you would see something like this:
521 $ git checkout -m mytopic
523 Auto-merging frotz
524 ERROR: Merge conflict in frotz
525 fatal: merge program failed
526 At this point, git diff shows the changes cleanly merged as in the
528 previous example, as well as the changes in the conflicted files.
529 Edit and resolve the conflict and mark it resolved with git add as
530 usual:
531 $ edit frotz
533 $ git add frotz
534
536 git-switch(1), git-restore(1)
537
539 Part of the git(1) suite
540Git 2.36.1 2022-05-05 GIT-CHECKOUT(1)