Re: remote branch checkout issue, why its *(no branch)

From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 28, 2008, 22:32 UTC
Message-ID: <m3k5anjxcd.fsf@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <9e6474ae0811281415n7b4596afq7b3ce25816d9a639@mail.gmail.com>

"Sudipta GHOSH" <sudipta.in@gmail.com> writes:

Show 17 quoted lines

> In our git repository there are few branches like
> 
> master
> origin/B1
> origin/B2
> 
> After doing  #git checkout origin/B1 I found that my current branch is
> *(no branch)
> 
> #git branch
> *(no branch)
> master
> 
> Why its showing *(no branch) why not origin/B1
> 
> How I can checkout origin/B1 and after that my current branch will be
> origin/B1 not the *(no branch)

First, 'origin/B1' is so called remote-tracking branch, and its full name is refs/remotes/origin/B1. Those branches are updated _automatically_ by git on fetch, to follow branch 'B1' in 'origin' repository. Therefore, to not lose _your_ changes git doesn't allow checking out remote-tracking branches. You can checkout _state_ of such branch into anonymous noname branch, so called in git jargon "detached HEAD".

What you can do is to create _local_ branch, closely tied to remote-tracking branch 'origin/B1', by using:

  $ git branch -b B1 --track origin/B1

Git would set up configuration for this branch in such way that "git pull" command given on 'B1' branch would "do the right thing"(TM)

I really recommend reading "Git User's Manual" or "The Git Community Book" first...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git