git: fetch and merge, don’t pull | Mark's Blog

git: fetch and merge, don’t pull | Mark's Blog: "one of the git tips that I find myself frequently passing on to people is:

Don’t use git pull, use git fetch and then git merge.

The problem with git pull is that it has all kinds of helpful magic that means you don’t really have to learn about the different types of branch in git. Mostly things Just Work, but when they don’t it’s often difficult to work out why. What seem like obvious bits of syntax for git pull may have rather surprising results, as even a cursory look through the manual page should convince you.

The other problem is that by both fetching and merging in one command, your working directory is updated without giving you a chance to examine the changes you’ve just brought into your repository. Of course, unless you turn off all the safety checks, the effects of a git pull on your working directory are never going to be catastrophic, but you might prefer to do things more slowly so you don’t have to backtrack."



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