Pull and Fetch Changes

Once the remote code is changed, we may want to update the local content with the latest changes. We can do that by fetching and merging the code. It’s important to know the difference between git pull and git merge.

The git pull command

In this course, git fetch and git merge are used more often than the git pull command. The git pull command is used only when we know that the user is the only person working on that branch.

The reason is that git pull automatically merges the remotely changed code into our local branch. That works most of the time. But in rare cases, when we merge a remote code, it causes issues on our current codebase.

So, it’s better to fetch the remote code first. In the console, notice which files have changed on the external side. We can examine the changes before combining the code into our working environment. If we find issues with the remote changes, we can reject them and request that the teammate improve the code. We can fetch and merge later after the improvements are made.

Workflow to fetch remote code

Here’s a typical workflow when fetching remote code:

1. Run git fetch --all to fetch to see any new updates from our teammates.
2. Run git log --oneline --graph --all to have a glimpse of the latest big picture. Read the one-line commit messages and inspect the commit paths.
3. If the teammates have updated code in our working branch, merge that branch with priority.
4. Run git diff current_branch origin/remote_branch to inspect the changes.
5. Determine if merging the remote branch is appropriate.
6. Merge the remote branch by running git merge origin/remote_branch.