Git - when to pull / where to pull from origin? - merge

We've just transitioned to a gitlab system. I pulled from master, created a branch, and am ready commit and request a merge. Before I commit, I want to pull changes that happened in the interim.
Question - do I switch back to the main branch to do the pull? Then switch back to the current branch? But if I do that, will it no longer of the the changes from the pull to main? And if I don't switch to the main branch, will I be committing code without the updated code?

No need to switch to master (do they call it main branch now?), just do the following command from your current branch (replace master with main if your repo is post-BLM):
git merge origin/master

On the Github desktop client, I did the following:
switch to master
pull
switch to branch
merge from master

Related

Issue when pull request on GitHub

Commit Merge branch dev from my-branch
2 pull requests from my-branch to dev and master branch
Hi everyone,
I have problem when pull request from my branch to dev and master branch. It was occured 1 commit is Merge branch dev into my branch - I hadn't pull request it yet. That's odd.
Base on first image, you can see the title is commit dev from my branch (So, It means I created a pull request). But in the commit, we can see a commit named "Merge branch dev into ...".
And I don't know how to check it, because it only has one Pull request to merge code (into dev from my-branch).
My process is :
Switch master (git checkout master)
Pull from master (git fetch -p and git pull)
Create new local branch from (git checkout -b my branch)
Push to GitHub (git push origin -u HEAD)
Pull request (first is into dev from my branch, second is into master from my branch)
The different with other my pull requests is this pull request have many conflicts I need to fix manually.
I'm not sure if I wrong at what step?
And I have last question, how we can block pull request from dev to another branch?
Thanks so much.
I just wonder why it has Merge branch dev, It makes code was wrong.
And could anyone tell me know how to block pull request from dev to another branch?

how to move master branch to main branch on github

I have a master branch and a main branch in git-hub. This was not intentional I realized that I have been pushing with master so everything went to master branch. However git-hub is now using main instead of master as first position. How can I move my master branch into main branch?
There are multipe ways to achieve this, but with pure git it can be done as follows:
#Change to the main branch
git checkout main
#Rebase the main branch on top of the current master. In easy words, go to the last point the two branches have in common, then add all the changes master did in the meanwhile and then add the changes done to main. If main is empty this is equivalent to
# git checkout master; git branch -D main; git checkout -b main
#which deletes the current main and then copies master over to main
git rebase master
# push back to GitHub (--force, because rabse does not add a commit, but changes the status, so push will be rejected without it)
git push --force
You can delete or rename a branch through the github web interface by visiting
https://github.com/YourName/YourRepo/branches
At time of writing you can access that page from the front page of your repository through the branches link:
And you can click the writing implement buttons to rename their associated branch:
It is worth noting that deleting and renaming branches through github is just as potentially destructive as doing it with CLI git or a GUI git client. You can of course re-push branches from your local clone, but you should make sure that clone is up to date before proceeding if you feel unsure.
Create a PR from master to main in the GitHub Webinterface.
If you want to do it local:
git checkout main
git merge master
git push
Set local master to track remote main:
git branch --set-upstream-to origin/main master
For first pull it will show error refusing to merge unrelated histories so you can pull with git pull origin main --allow-unrelated-histories
Push it into the main branch in GitHub.

How to keep a GitHub fork up to date without a merge commit or using CLI?

The normal GitHub flow to contribute to a repo is to create a fork of the upstream, clone a local copy where you make changes, then push back up to your fork and then create a PR to have your changes merged into upstream.
But if upstream changes after that, how do you update your fork without creating a merge commit (and also without using the git CLI)?
I already know how to do this in a way that will create a merge commit or which depend on the git command line interface. This question is specifically about using the GitHub.com website or GitHub Desktop application only (no CLI).
Since this is a very common workflow it seems like there should be some simple way to do it using the GitHub GUI.
To reiterate: any answers that use the CLI or create a merge commit (e.g. this way) will not be answering this question since I'm explicitly looking for a non-CLI solution.
without a merge commit or using CLI?
Not directly with GitHub web UI alone, since it would involve rebasing your PR branch on top of upstream/master
So in short: no.
But in less short... maybe, if you really want to try it.
Rebasing through GitHub web UI is actually possible, since Sept. 2016, ...
if you are the maintainer of the original repo, wanting to integrate a PR branch
if none of the replayed commit introduces a conflict
(This differs from GitHub Desktop, which, since June 5th 2019 does support rebasing. But that is a frontend to Git CLI, like other tools provide. For example GitKraken and interactive rebase)
So a convoluted workaround would be:
to fetch, then push upstream/master to the master branch of your own fork (a CLI operation, but more on that below)
change the base branch of your current PR to master (so a PR within the same repository: your own fork), provided you haven't pushed to master.
Meaning: master in your fork represents the updated upstream/master, with upstream being the original repository that you have forked.
Since you are the owner of that repository (your fork), GitHub can then show you if you can rebase said branch to the base branch of the PR (master), but only if there is no conflict.
finally, change the base branch again, to <originalRepo>/master (which is the intended target of your PR)
The very first step is typically done through command line, but... there might be a trick to do it (update upstream master in your fork) through web UI: see "Quick Tip: Sync a Fork with the Original via GitHub’s Web UI" by Bruno Skvorc
In short, it involves:
creating a new branch from your current master (which would be at upstream/master at the time you forked the original repository)
Making a PR with that new branch and <originalRepo/master>
doing a base switch before creating the PR
That is the step which artificially forces upstream/master to be refreshed
You can the create and merge it with the “Merge Pull Request” button (and “Confirm Merge” afterwards): the merge will be trivial: no merge commit.
The end result is: your own master branch (in your fork) updated with upstream/master (the master branch of the original repository)!
You can then resume the steps I describe above, and change the base of your current PR to your own (now refreshed) master branch, and see if you can rebase it!
This is feasible with GitHub Desktop since version 1.0.7 considering the following:
If the current branch does not have any commits ahead upstream (the original repo of the fork), the new commits can be pulled without creating a new merge commit
In GitHub Desktop:
Clone your repository from File > Clone Repository
Fetch origin, which will automatically fetch the upstream as well
Go to Branches by clicking on where it says Current Branch
Click on Choose a branch to merge into <branch> at the bottom
Search for upstream/<branch>, then click Merge upstream/<branch> into <branch>
Push to origin, et voilà!
Otherwise, ff the current branch has commits ahead of the fork, then of course one has to create a merge commit or rebase and force push. For rebasing which might be more preferable, do the following:
In GItHub Desktop, go to Branch from menu, then Rebase Current Branch
Search for upstream/<branch>, then click Start Rebase
Solve any conflicts that have occurred from the rebase
Force push to origin. You will get a warning for this for obvious reasons.
For avoiding force-pushing to your work when your current branch is both ahead and behind its upstream counterpart, either create a new merge commit or:
Make a new branch based with all your changes
If needed, reset the original branch to its original state (before it diverged from the original repo)
Perform the steps from the first scenario and merge your changes into your branch.
And yes, it seems that pulling via the GitHub website from the original repo without creating a pull request and merge commit is not possible at this moment.
Demo GIF for first scenario: https://imgur.com/a/8wci2yf
Some GitHub issues related to this:
Add an upstream to forked repositories
multi-remote support in Desktop
Update
Note: Non-CLI based approach that might help:
Is there a way to make GitHub Desktop rebase a branch against master?
The only key here is doing a rebase, so the above answer should help.
CLI way (which is easier and using git, so it should be more comprehensive by default)
There are some practices that you should use to avoid this.
Don't work on the master branch in your fork.
$ git clone <your fork>
$ git checkout -b feature_branch
You can work in your feature_branch and then raise a Pull Request.
Once your changes are merged in the upstream master, you can pull from upstream to your origin. Since the master on upstream will have your commits sitting neatly on top of it, there won't be a merge commit.
$ git checkout master
$ git pull upstream master
$ git push origin master
In the case, where the maintainer has diverged from the master that you have in your fork, that is, it's not linear any more, you need to pull a fresh copy of it. That should not be a problem as your changes are already in the upstream.
If the master in upstream has moved ahead while you were working on your PR, then you can rebase on you feature_branch.
$ git checkout master
$ git pull upstream master
$ git push origin master
$ git checkout feature_branch
$ git rebase master
Please refer to this document for detailed reference: Fork and pull request workflow

Merging two branches on Github

I'm new to Github and I have a branch that I want to merge with the master. I couldn't merge it via git command line, its very complicated.
I tried to merge it on Github site following below documentation:
Merging a pull request on GitHub
But I got the following message:
There isn’t anything to compare!
Here's the project:
https://github.com/SumayahAlharbi/erecords
What does 4 commits behind master mean?
Update
Please check below pictures:
I thought I did the merging successfully but nothing changes!
What does 4 commits behind master mean?
It means that the master branch has 4 commits which are not present in your branch currently. You need to rebase your branch and then create a New Pull
Request which will be needed to be reviewed and finally approved so
that your branch can be merged with the master.
There isn’t anything to compare!
Check the difference between the master and your branch. Click the Compare icon in Git hub or run this
command from your local branch in Git Bash : git diff --name-only master_branch.
I just checked your repo. The changes of ExportFeature branch are already merged into the master branch, and then the merge is reverted. That's why now if you raise a pull request to merge ExportFeature into master, you would get There isn’t anything to compare!.
See the latest commits on ExportFeature which are already present in the master branch.
The reason you are seeing 4 commits behind master on ExportFeature branch is since the master branch has 4 more commits than the ExportFeature branch. If you see the total commits on ExportFeature branch, it's 7, whereas the total number of commits on the master branch is 11. If you need to do any more changes on the ExportFeature branch, you would need to get the latest changes from the master branch by running the command git pull origin master when your current branch is ExportFeature on your local git terminal.

How do "reuse" a branch on Bitbucket / Sourcetree after merge

I was working on a branch of my Bitbucket repo (lets call it "frontend-dev"), which has now been merged with the master branch. I would like to branch again to make further changes, without creating a new branch. How do I branch and get back onto "frontend-dev".
I am using Sourcetree to manage version control.
Normally merging to master does not close or delete the branch. If there are changes in master since the merge from "frontend-dev", you can merge back to "frontend-dev". Either way, you can then simply switch your working copy to "frontend-dev" and continue developing.
Another question discusses what to do when you have closed or deleted the branch: Restore Merged Branch in Bitbucket Repo