World 4: Hello GitHub

Fetch vs pull

You will learn: how to get your team's new commits, and peek before you join them in.

The problem

Your laptop~/diary

ea2c020Add purple stylemain (HEAD is here)origin/main
f6c78e5Add home page
2efd0f2Add README

0 ahead · 0 behind origin/main

GitHubgithub.com/you/diary

ea2c020Add purple stylemain
f6c78e5Add home page
2efd0f2Add README

Aisyah just pushed her diary entry. Your laptop has no idea. How do you find out?

Watch

~/diary $ git fetchFrom https://github.com/you/diary   ea2c020..c64aa8e  main       -> origin/main~/diary $ git statusOn branch mainYour branch is behind 'origin/main' by 1 commit, and can be fast-forwarded.  (use "git pull" to update your local branch)nothing to commit, working tree clean

downloads the news. It moves origin/main only. Your own main and your files stay put.

Try it

Fetch first and look at your laptop. Then pull Aisyah’s entry into main.

Your laptop~/diary

ea2c020Add purple stylemain (HEAD is here)origin/main
f6c78e5Add home page
2efd0f2Add README

0 ahead · 0 behind origin/main

GitHubgithub.com/you/diary

c64aa8eAdd Aisyah's day 2 · Aisyah (only on GitHub)main
ea2c020Add purple style
f6c78e5Add home page
2efd0f2Add README

Tap an action. Watch the courier.

Predict

You ran git fetch. Did your index.html change?

Watch

origin/main is a . It is your laptop’s memory of GitHub. It moves only when you fetch, pull or push.

Check

Fetch or pull? Sort each one.

Drag a card into a box. Or tap the card, then tap the box.

Try it

Type it yourself: fetch, look with git status, then pull.

Hint

git status tells you how far behind you are.

You did it!

You can now fetch to peek and pull to catch up.

Go deeper (optional)

git pull is git fetch plus a merge (or a rebase: next lesson). After a fetch, git log --oneline main..origin/main lists what is new. git fetch --prune forgets remote branches that were deleted on GitHub.