# Clone a repo and checkout a specifc remote branch 3 messages from 2009-03-07 to 2009-03-07. Participants: Paolo Ciarrocchi, Patrick Notz. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/18188 ## Paolo Ciarrocchi, 2009-03-07 11:42 Subject: Clone a repo and checkout a specifc remote branch Message-ID: <4d8e3fd30903070342q584315cjcd059dcfe558dcfd@mail.gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4d8e3fd30903070342q584315cjcd059dcfe558dcfd%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hi list, I've got a few questions from a friend that used git for the first time, I answered to all of them but the following. Scenario: He knows the URl of a git repository which contains a few branches. He is interested only to a single specific branch. He expected to manage to clone the specific remote branch with a single command, instead he had to learn the following procedure: $ git clone git://uri_of_the_repo localdir $ cd localdir $ git branch * master # OK, so now he cloned the whole repository and checked out the master branch $ git checkout mybranch origin/coolbranch Wouldn't be an improvement to let the user to specify which remote branch he want to be checked out after a clone? Something like: $ git clone git://uri_of_the_repo:coolbranch localdir to get a clone of the whole repository and to check out the origin/coolbranch remote branch? I quickly discussed this scenario on the #git channel and a user suggested to use the following procedure: $ git init $ git fetch git://uri_of_the_repo coolbranch which was new to me, I tried it as follow: $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git man remote: Counting objects: 7319, done.←[K remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1536/1536), done.←[K remote: Total 7319 (delta 5640), reused 7290 (delta 5625)←[K Receiving objects: 100% (7319/7319), 1.40 MiB | 110 KiB/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (5640/5640), done. From git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git * branch man -> FETCH_HEAD but now I don't understand how to checkout the branch :-/ Ciao, -- Paolo http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/ http://mypage.vodafone.it/ ``` ## Patrick Notz, 2009-03-07 18:53 Subject: Re: Clone a repo and checkout a specifc remote branch Message-ID: <1cd1989b0903071053l3f7aa35bu8e8e6b7e56cfc34f@mail.gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/1cd1989b0903071053l3f7aa35bu8e8e6b7e56cfc34f%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <4d8e3fd30903070342q584315cjcd059dcfe558dcfd@mail.gmail.com> ``` On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 4:42 AM, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote: > Hi list, > I've got a few questions from a friend that used git for the first > time, I answered to all of them but the following. > > Scenario: > He knows the URl of a git repository which contains a few branches. He > is interested only to a single specific branch. > He expected to manage to clone the specific remote branch with a > single command, instead he had to learn the following procedure: > > $ git clone git://uri_of_the_repo localdir > $ cd localdir > $ git branch > * master > # OK, so now he cloned the whole repository and checked out the master branch > $ git checkout mybranch origin/coolbranch > > Wouldn't be an improvement to let the user to specify which remote > branch he want to be checked out after a clone? > Something like: > $ git clone git://uri_of_the_repo:coolbranch localdir > to get a clone of the whole repository and to check out the > origin/coolbranch remote branch? > Here's a link to a recent thread on this topic (that started with a proposed patch) http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/111967 You can read the arguments there. Johannes Schindelin noted that the normal way to do this is like this: Besides, the common way to check out something different than the remote's HEAD is like this: $ git clone -n $URL $ cd $DIR $ git checkout -t origin/$BRANCH > I quickly discussed this scenario on the #git channel and a user > suggested to use the following procedure: > $ git init > $ git fetch git://uri_of_the_repo coolbranch > which was new to me, I tried it as follow: > $ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git man > remote: Counting objects: 7319, done.←[K > remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1536/1536), done.←[K > remote: Total 7319 (delta 5640), reused 7290 (delta 5625)←[K > Receiving objects: 100% (7319/7319), 1.40 MiB | 110 KiB/s, done. > Resolving deltas: 100% (5640/5640), done. > From git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git > * branch man -> FETCH_HEAD > > but now I don't understand how to checkout the branch :-/ > > Ciao, > -- > Paolo > http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/ > http://mypage.vodafone.it/ > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > ``` ## Paolo Ciarrocchi, 2009-03-07 23:25 Subject: Re: Clone a repo and checkout a specifc remote branch Message-ID: <4d8e3fd30903071525g27960764rbc1cee77e4334a6e@mail.gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4d8e3fd30903071525g27960764rbc1cee77e4334a6e%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <1cd1989b0903071053l3f7aa35bu8e8e6b7e56cfc34f@mail.gmail.com> ``` On 3/7/09, Patrick Notz wrote: >> Something like: >> $ git clone git://uri_of_the_repo:coolbranch localdir >> to get a clone of the whole repository and to check out the >> origin/coolbranch remote branch? >> > > Here's a link to a recent thread on this topic (that started with a > proposed patch) > > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/111967 > > You can read the arguments there. Johannes Schindelin noted that the > normal way to do this is like this: > > > Besides, the common way to check out something different than the remote's > HEAD is like this: > > $ git clone -n $URL > $ cd $DIR > $ git checkout -t origin/$BRANCH > Thank you, very appreciated, I missed that discussion. I'll add my comments to that thread. Regards, -- Paolo http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/ http://mypage.vodafone.it/ ```