fetch and checkout a remote git branch in just one command

Question

If

• I have local repo with a remote $REMOTE already set up
• and a new branch $BRANCH exists on the remote repo that I haven't fetched, yet

can I fetch that branch and check it out into a tracking local branch of the same name in a single command?

I can achieve the desired result in two commands either with

git fetch $REMOTE $BRANCH
git checkout $BRANCH # or more explicitly git checkout -b $BRANCH $REMOTE/$BRANCH

or (inspired by this answer to Question How do I check out a remote Git branch?) with

git fetch $REMOTE $BRANCH:$BRANCH
git branch --set-upstream-to=$BRANCH $BRANCH

Answer 1

There is no builtin command, but you could define an alias in your ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
  fetch-checkout = !sh -c 'git fetch $1 $2 && git checkout $2' -