What will happen if I 'git fetch' or 'git pull'?

Tags: diff remote fetch git preview changes pull remote diff what changed

If you have used svn for years, git can seem a little strange.

Half the problem is the different mindset -- let's tackle one common problem: How do I know what will happen if I do a git fetch or a git pull? First let's do a status:

$ git status
# On branch master
# Your branch is behind 'origin/master' by 3 commits,
  and can be fast-forwarded.

That's a lot friendlier than svn's equivalent svn diff. And that status gives us the clue as to what we would like to compare: it's simply our copy (master) and the one it's "behind" (origin/master). So if we request:

$ git diff master origin/master

we will get a nice difference between our copy (shown in the diff with -) and the remote (shown with +).