Update an outdated branch against master in a Git repo

git git-branch
Andrew picture Andrew · Jan 23, 2012 · Viewed 102k times · Source

I have a Git repository that has branch (local and remote) that has become outdated. I would like to bring this branch up to date with the master branch, but I don't know how to do this. There will also probably be many merge conflicts.

How can I bring or update this out-of-date branch to the same state as the master branch?

Answer

Daniel Pittman picture Daniel Pittman · Jan 23, 2012

Update the master branch, which you need to do regardless.

Then, one of:

  1. Rebase the old branch against the master branch. Solve the merge conflicts during rebase, and the result will be an up-to-date branch that merges cleanly against master.

  2. Merge your branch into master, and resolve the merge conflicts.

  3. Merge master into your branch, and resolve the merge conflicts. Then, merging from your branch into master should be clean.

None of these is better than the other, they just have different trade-off patterns.

I would use the rebase approach, which gives cleaner overall results to later readers, in my opinion, but that is nothing aside from personal taste.

To rebase and keep the branch you would:

git checkout <branch> && git rebase <target>

In your case, check out the old branch, then 

git rebase master

to get it rebuilt against master.

Related questions

How do I delete a Git branch locally and remotely?

I want to delete a branch both locally and remotely. Failed Attempts to Delete a Remote Branch $ git branch -d remotes/origin/bugfix error: branch 'remotes/origin/bugfix' not found. $ git branch -d origin/bugfix error: branch 'origin/bugfix' not …

Read More
How do I push a new local branch to a remote Git repository and track it too?

I want to be able to do the following: Create a local branch based on some other (remote or local) branch (via git branch or git checkout -b) Push the local branch to the remote repository (publish), but make it …

Read More
How do I clone a specific Git branch?

Git clone will behave copying remote current working branch into local. Is there any way to clone a specific branch by myself without switching branches on the remote repository?

Read More