Understanding GitHub branches

Question

I am trying to understand how GitHub works, in terms of makings commits from different branches. I am looking at a repository which I want to clone. Let's say the address is https://github.com/dartsim/alpha . Now, there are two branches: Master , and V2 , and the code I want is in the V2 branch. If I navigate the V2 file structure in the GitHub website, it takes me to the address https://github.com/dartsim/dart/tree/V2 . Now, if I download the ZIP file from this webpage, it gives me the V2 code as needed. However, on this same V2 webpage, it also shows the address to use if you want to clone the repository, which is shown as https://github.com/alpha/alpha.git . However, when I clone this, it downloads the code from the old Master branch, rather than the V2 branch.

Please could somebody explain why this webpage is not showing a download link for the V2 branch? Why is this default download link for the old version of the code, rather than the newer version? Thanks!

Answer 1

The default branch is by default 'master' - but you can set that up in the Github repository settings page.

The download link at Github is a snapshot of the active branch - a git export.

Git is distributed and that means that when you clone, you get a complete copy of the repository, all branches/tags/whatever included.

You can list the branches by running git branch and switch to a branch by doing git checkout name-of-branch .

If you want a quick tutorial on git, see git - the simple guide

And, of course, you ought to read the official git docs (they are great):

Git Documentation