When you need to switch to a branch that is not up to date with the remote branch, the typical workflow involves switching to that branch and pulling the latest changes. This process can be time-consuming and disruptive if your IDE reloads the project each time you switch branches.
Shell
git switch main # Switch branch (IDE reload #1)
git pull # Fetch and merge (IDE reload #2)
Git provides a command that allows you to update local branches without leaving your current workspace. You can use git fetch with a refspec that directly updates your local branch:
Shell
git fetch origin main:main # Update local main with remote changes (no IDE reload)
git switch main # Now switch to main (IDE reload #1)
This command fetches the latest main branch from origin and updates your local main branch directly, without requiring you to switch to it first.
The IDE will not reload the project since you do not switch branches. This is useful when working with large projects where reloading takes considerable time.
This technique has one important constraint: the command only works for fast-forward updates (when your local branch is behind the remote branch with no conflicting local commits).
If you have local commits on the target branch, but you don't want to keep them, you can use the + prefix to force the update:
Shell
git fetch origin +main:main # The + forces non-fast-forward
You can also use git branch --force or git update-ref to achieve the same result, but these methods are less commonly used for this purpose.
#Using git branch -f (Force Update)
Shell
# First fetch the latest refs
git fetch origin
# Then force update the branch pointer
git branch --force main origin/main
#Using git update-ref (Low-Level Update)
Shell
# Fetch latest and get the commit hash
git fetch origin
COMMIT_HASH=$(git rev-parse origin/main)
# Update the branch reference directly
git update-ref refs/heads/main $COMMIT_HASH
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