Remote Branches

Goals

By the end of this lesson you should be able to

• Describe what a remote branch is and how it relates to a repository with remotes
• Use the --all option of the git branch command to list branches, including remote branches

What is a Remote Branch?

You already know that branches in Git can be used to track ‘alternate histories’ of changes in the files in a repository.

When working with remotes, Git automatically creates branches in the local repository that contain the change history of each remote. These branches are called remote branches. If a repository and its remote(s) are in sync then both a branch and its related remote branch(es) will point to the same commit.

NOTE: Since the intent of remote branches is for them to be a replica of a branch in a remote repository, Git will not allow you to switch to a remote branch using git switch¹. You can, however, view the differences between two branches using git diff, as you will see in the next lesson.

NOTE: Remote branches are usually annotated with their remote name as a prefix, separated by a /. For example, if a remote was named origin and it had a branch named master, it would be labelled origin/master.

Hands-on Example

Consider the two repositories you have created, myrepo and clonerepo. At this point both repositories should be perfectly in sync because you have not made any changes in either repository since you cloned. In this case the master branch in clonerepo should point to the same commit as that of myrepo.

Recall again the log output for the two repositories:

$ cd ../clonerepo
$ git log --oneline
6ba2205 (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Merge mybranch into master
ff2b08d (origin/mybranch) A note about the merge command
37a381b Notes about the branch and switch commands
737f014 Merge mybranch into master
663e99a Title change
1ebc7b1 A note about the restore command
70b4290 A note about the commit command
08f4897 (tag: anothertag) Renamed git.txt
714c41e Removed unnecessary files
39fa5fc Revert "Revert "Added note about the 'git add' command""
b2763fe Revert "Added note about the 'git add' command"
87af010 Added note about the 'git add' command
7d7596a Added another change tracking description
312fabf Added a description about Git change tracking
9d52001 Added more files and text
3f21652 Added brief description
dde186d Added .gitignore file
17f9667 Initial commit

$ cd ../myrepo
$ git log --oneline
6ba2205 (HEAD -> master) Merge mybranch into master
ff2b08d (mybranch) A note about the merge command
37a381b Notes about the branch and switch commands
737f014 Merge mybranch into master
663e99a Title change
1ebc7b1 A note about the restore command
70b4290 A note about the commit command
08f4897 (tag: anothertag) Renamed git.txt
714c41e Removed unnecessary files
39fa5fc Revert "Revert "Added note about the 'git add' command""
b2763fe Revert "Added note about the 'git add' command"
87af010 Added note about the 'git add' command
7d7596a Added another change tracking description
312fabf Added a description about Git change tracking
9d52001 Added more files and text
3f21652 Added brief description
dde186d Added .gitignore file
17f9667 Initial commit

Indeed, the master branch in both points to commit 6ba2. But take a closer look to that same commit in the clonerepo log output. You should see there two branch labels that are not in the original myrepo: origin/master and origin/HEAD.

The first of these labels is the remote branch in clonerepo that Git automatically configured when you cloned myrepo. This branch is essentially a copy of the master branch of myrepo as it was when clonerepo was last synced with myrepo. (Remember that myrepo is a remote named origin in clonerepo.)

The second label is simply indicating that HEAD in the remote points to master. This becomes even more clear when you run the git branch command with the --all option to include remote branches in its display.

In clonerepo list the branches, including remotes

$ git branch --all
* master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/mybranch

Two more things to notice:

1. There is a remote branch for origin/mybranch (ie, myrepo's mybranch branch) in clonerepo
2. There is not a local branch named mybranch in clonerepo

NOTE: This is another instance where cloning and copying differ: in a clone, no local branches aside from master will exist by default (but there will be remote branches for each branch in the remote); in a copy, all local branches in the original will exist in the copy (but there will be no remote branches that were not already in the original).

You are now ready to learn how to keep a repository in sync with its remote(s)…