Git update master from some branch

Question

While I'm in a branch B1 can I update the master from remote while staying in B1?
Ie not doing

git checkout master
git pull
git checkout B1

But something shorter?

Answer 1

It's possible to get your local master updated without leaving your local branch by:

git pull origin master:master

What this command does is to pull the remote master and update the local master.

Generally git pull origin pulls all the branches in origin . It's possible to get one single branch pulled by git pull origin <remote-branch> . Actually the last parameter is a refspec .

A refspec follows the format src:dst . In the case of git-pull , src refers to a remote branch and dst to a local branch. git pull origin master , will just pull the remote master but won't update the local one. git pull origin master:master , will pull the remote master and update the local one.

Answer 2

You run:

git fetch --all

or

git remote update

After that, the remote master will in remote-tracking branch origin/master , you will be able to see its progress just like it were the local branch master . You can choose a time to merge/rebase the local master later.

Explanation: most probably you have a pair of remote-tracking branch origin/master and local branch master . master starts from from origin/master at some moment and contains local changes. git pull (1) updates origin/master and (2) merge or rebase the local modifications with origin/master progress. (1) can be done by git fetch I recommended, and (2) in current implementation requires checking out master anyway, even if the changes are trivial to merge.