• Update the remote-tracking branches:
$ git fetch origin
The above command copies all branches from the remote
refs/heads/ namespace and stores them to the local
refs/remotes/origin/ namespace, unless the
branch.<name>.fetch option is used to specify a non-default
refspec.
• Using refspecs explicitly:
$ git fetch origin +seen:seen maint:tmp
This updates (or creates, as necessary) branches seen and tmp
in the local repository by fetching from the branches
(respectively) seen and maint from the remote repository.
The seen branch will be updated even if it does not
fast-forward, because it is prefixed with a plus sign; tmp
will not be.
• Peek at a remote's branch, without configuring the remote in
your local repository:
$ git fetch git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git maint
$ git log FETCH_HEAD
The first command fetches the maint branch from the
repository at git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git and
the second command uses FETCH_HEAD to examine the branch with
git-log(1). The fetched objects will eventually be removed by
git's built-in housekeeping (see git-gc(1)).
