I want to synchronize my local repository with a remote one so that my local repository becomes a 100% copy of the remote one - meaning that if certain files differ in these repositories, we override the local ones with the remote ones, and if there are files in local repositories that do not exist in the remote, the local files get removed.
Is there any way to achieve that other than by doing a fresh clone of remote repository?
Similar question as Sync local git repo with remote in one shot discarding local changes/commits.
Explanation: navigate to your local repo. tell git where the remote repo is located. upload/push your local branches to the remote repo.
git fetch --prune
-p, --prune
After fetching, remove any remote-tracking branches which no longer exist on the remote. prune options
These steps will do it:
git reset --hard HEAD
git clean -f -x -d -n
then without -n
This will take care of all local changes. Now the commits...
git status
and note the line such as:
Your branch is ahead of 'xxxx' by N commits.
Take a note of number 'N' now:
git reset --hard HEAD~N
git pull
and finally:
git status
should show nothing to add/commit. All clean.
However, a fresh clone can do the same (but is much slow).
===Updated===
As my git knowledge slightly improved over the the time, I have come up with yet another simpler way to do the same. Here is how (#with explanation). While in your working branch:
git fetch # This updates 'remote' portion of local repo.
git reset --hard origin/<your-working-branch>
# this will sync your local copy with remote content, discarding any committed
# or uncommitted changes.
Although your local commits and changes will disappear from sight after this, it is possible to recover committed changes, if necessary.
You want to do
git fetch --prune origin
git reset --hard origin/master
git clean -f -d
This makes your local repo exactly like your remote repo.
Remember to replace origin and master with the remote and branch that you want to synchronize with.
You need to understand that a Git repository is not just a tree of directories and files, but also stores a history of those trees - which might contain branches and merges.
When fetching from a repository, you will copy all or some of the branches there to your repository. These are then in your repository as "remote tracking branches", e.g. branches named like remotes/origin/master
or such.
Fetching new commits from the remote repository will not change anything about your local working copy.
Your working copy has normally a commit checked out, called HEAD
. This commit is usually the tip of one of your local branches.
I think you want to update your local branch (or maybe all the local branches?) to the corresponding remote branch, and then check out the latest branch.
To avoid any conflicts with your working copy (which might have local changes), you first clean everything which is not versioned (using git clean
). Then you check out the local branch corresponding to the remote branch you want to update to, and use git reset
to switch it to the fetched remote branch. (git pull
will incorporate all updates of the remote branch in your local one, which might do the same, or create a merge commit if you have local commits.)
(But then you will really lose any local changes - both in working copy and local commits. Make sure that you really want this - otherwise better use a new branch, this saves your local commits. And use git stash
to save changes which are not yet committed.)
Edit: If you have only one local branch and are tracking one remote branch, all you need to do is
git pull
from inside the working directory.
This will fetch the current version of all tracked remote branches and update the current branch (and the working directory) to the current version of the remote branch it is tracking.
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With