How can I checkout out the HEAD version of my remote/tracking branch

Question

In git, how can I checkout out the HEAD version of my remote/tracking branch? Basically, I want to do a 'svn checkout ' in git.

I think the closest thing I find is 'git fetch', but from the man page, I don't know how to checkout 1 particular file using that?

Answer 1

Sometimes you may suffer from detached HEAD problems:

$ git checkout origin/master
Note: checking out 'origin/master'.

You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits
you make in this
state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.

If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you
create, you may
do so (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:

  git checkout -b <new-branch-name>

HEAD is now at c3ff60a rename

Then list all branches, you will see:

$ git branch -a
* (HEAD detached at origin/master)
  master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/master

If you want to checkout the branch which referenced by remotes/origin/HEAD, that is remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master, you can do:

HEAD_BRANCH="$(git branch -r | grep 'HEAD')"
HEAD_BRANCH="${HEAD_BRANCH#*origin/HEAD -> *origin/}"
git checkout "$HEAD_BRANCH"

So that you can checkout "HEAD" version of remote/tracking branch