Software Development

What is the difference between ‘git pull’ and ‘git fetch’?

In the simplest terms, git pull does a git fetch followed by a git merge.

You can do a git fetch at any time to update your remote-tracking branches under refs/remotes/<remote>/.

This operation never changes any of your own local branches under refs/heads, and is safe to do without changing your working copy.

I have even heard of people running git fetch periodically in a cron job in the background (although I wouldn’t recommend doing this).

A git pull is what you would do to bring a local branch up-to-date with its remote version, while also updating your other remote-tracking branches.

git pull = git fetch + git merge.

Published on Java Code Geeks with permission by Ahmad Gohar, partner at our JCG program. See the original article here: What is the difference between ‘git pull’ and ‘git fetch’?

Opinions expressed by Java Code Geeks contributors are their own.

Ahmad Gohar

Technical Team Leader with 9+ years experience in designing and developing enterprise Solution using Oracle, IBM, and Open Source. With a solid technical and academic background. Strong technical project management experience, coordinate demo's for QA team, performing code, design and test plan reviews.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Yeet McGee
5 years ago

good article, bad ads

Back to top button