Updates files in the working tree to match the version in the
index or the specified tree. If no pathspec was given, git
checkout will also update HEAD to set the specified branch as the
current branch.
git checkout [<branch>]
To prepare for working on <branch>, switch to it by updating
the index and the files in the working tree, and by pointing
HEAD at the branch. Local modifications to the files in the
working tree are kept, so that they can be committed to the
<branch>.
If <branch> is not found but there does exist a tracking
branch in exactly one remote (call it <remote>) with a
matching name and --no-guess is not specified, treat as
equivalent to
$ git checkout -b <branch> --track <remote>/<branch>
You could omit <branch>, in which case the command
degenerates to "check out the current branch", which is a
glorified no-op with rather expensive side-effects to show
only the tracking information, if exists, for the current
branch.
git checkout -b|-B <new_branch> [<start point>]
Specifying -b causes a new branch to be created as if
git-branch(1) were called and then checked out. In this case
you can use the --track or --no-track options, which will be
passed to git branch. As a convenience, --track without -b
implies branch creation; see the description of --track
below.
If -B is given, <new_branch> is created if it doesn't exist;
otherwise, it is reset. This is the transactional equivalent
of
$ git branch -f <branch> [<start point>]
$ git checkout <branch>
that is to say, the branch is not reset/created unless "git
checkout" is successful.
git checkout --detach [<branch>], git checkout [--detach]
<commit>
Prepare to work on top of <commit>, by detaching HEAD at it
(see "DETACHED HEAD" section), and updating the index and the
files in the working tree. Local modifications to the files
in the working tree are kept, so that the resulting working
tree will be the state recorded in the commit plus the local
modifications.
When the <commit> argument is a branch name, the --detach
option can be used to detach HEAD at the tip of the branch
(git checkout <branch> would check out that branch without
detaching HEAD).
Omitting <branch> detaches HEAD at the tip of the current
branch.
git checkout [-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>]
[<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>..., git checkout
[-f|--ours|--theirs|-m|--conflict=<style>] [<tree-ish>]
--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]
Overwrite the contents of the files that match the pathspec.
When the <tree-ish> (most often a commit) is not given,
overwrite working tree with the contents in the index. When
the <tree-ish> is given, overwrite both the index and the
working tree with the contents at the <tree-ish>.
The index may contain unmerged entries because of a previous
failed merge. By default, if you try to check out such an
entry from the index, the checkout operation will fail and
nothing will be checked out. Using -f will ignore these
unmerged entries. The contents from a specific side of the
merge can be checked out of the index by using --ours or
--theirs. With -m, changes made to the working tree file can
be discarded to re-create the original conflicted merge
result.
git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
This is similar to the previous mode, but lets you use the
interactive interface to show the "diff" output and choose
which hunks to use in the result. See below for the
description of --patch option.
