Thread (12 messages) 12 messages, 2 authors, 2020-05-02
STALE2272d

[PATCH v4 4/4] gitfaq: fetching and pulling a repository

From: Shourya Shukla <hidden>
Date: 2020-04-29 09:38:46
Subsystem: documentation, the rest · Maintainers: Jonathan Corbet, Linus Torvalds

Add an issue in 'Common Issues' section which addresses the confusion
between performing a 'fetch' and a 'pull'.

Signed-off-by: Shourya Shukla <redacted>
---
 Documentation/gitfaq.txt | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/gitfaq.txt b/Documentation/gitfaq.txt
index 6f32846e3d..e091513639 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitfaq.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitfaq.txt
@@ -253,6 +253,26 @@ way of cloning it in lesser space?::
 	Any entity which has not been cloned to save space can be cloned
 	on-demand. See linkgit:partial-clone[1].
 
+[[fetching-and-pulling]]
+How do I know if I want to do a fetch or a pull?::
+	A fetch brings in the latest changes made upstream (i.e., the
+	remote repository we are working on). This allows us to inspect
+	the changes made upstream and integrate all those changes (if
+	and only if we want to) or only cherry pick certain changes.
+	Fetching does not have any immediate effects on the local
+	repository.
+
+	A pull is a wrapper for a fetch and merge. This means that doing
+	a `git pull` will not only fetch the changes made upstream but
+	integrate them as well with our local repository. The merge may
+	go smoothly or have merge conflicts depending on the case. A pull
+	does not allow you to review any changes made upstream but rather
+	merge those changes on their own.
++
+This is the reason why it is sometimes advised to fetch the changes
+first and then merge them accordingly because not every change might
+be of utility to the user.
+
 Hooks
 -----
 
-- 
2.26.2
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