Merge remote changes into a branch that is not the current branch

Question

I have multiple branches, and I would like to merge remote changes into a branch that is not my current branch.

For example:

git merge remote/branch some-other-branch 

Answer 1

This is doable only if the local branch can be fast-forwarded to the remote head. While in any branch, to fetch the remote branch from origin and update the local head use:

git fetch origin remote_branch:local_branch 

Essentially, this is the reverse of how you open a new branch at origin with git push -u origin local_branch:remote_branch.

Answer 2

There's an answer to a similar question that might do what you want.

From your repo root:

git push . remote/branch:some-other-branch 

This worked for me when I wanted to fast-forward master to a later commit just before I rebased to it from the branch I was in (not master).