Lesson 03 of 06Concept

Pull Changes

Goal: Bring a remote's new commits into your current branch with git pull, and choose between merging and rebasing.

git pull is two commands in one: a git fetch, then a git merge (or a git rebase) of the upstream branch into the branch you are on.

That second half is the part that moves your files, so everything you know about merging — fast-forwards, merge commits, conflicts — applies unchanged.

Pull is fetch plus integrate

Running git pull on main is equivalent to:

git fetch origin — download and move origin/main
git merge origin/main — join those commits into your main

If your branch has no commits of its own, the merge is a fast-forward: your main label simply slides along to origin/main, with no merge commit. That is the quiet, everyday case.

Pulling onto a branch that has moved too

Step 1 of 3

Your main has one commit the server does not; the server has one you do not. The branches have diverged, and a fetch has already shown you both.

Merge or rebase when pulling?

git pull

Merges the upstream branch in
Adds a merge commit when both sides moved
History shows exactly what happened

git pull --rebase

Replays your commits on top of theirs
No merge commit, straight history
Rewrites your unpushed commits

git pull --ff-only

Refuses unless it is a clean fast-forward
Stops and lets you decide
The safest default for a shared branch

An everyday fast-forward pull

$ git pull

From https://github.com/acme/weather-app
   1b7e55c..8d4c21e  main       -> origin/main
Updating 1b7e55c..8d4c21e
Fast-forward
 src/header.js | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

The first two lines are the fetch; the rest is the merge. "Fast-forward" means your branch had nothing of its own, so Git only had to move the label and update the files.