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[v3,4/4] gitfaq: fetching and pulling a repository

Message ID 20200421131223.29337-5-shouryashukla.oo@gmail.com (mailing list archive)
State New, archived
Headers show
Series gitfaq: add issues in the 'Common Issues' section | expand

Commit Message

Shourya Shukla April 21, 2020, 1:12 p.m. UTC 
Add an issue in 'Common Issues' section which addresses the confusion
between performing a 'fetch' and a 'pull'.

Signed-off-by: Shourya Shukla <shouryashukla.oo@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/gitfaq.txt | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+)
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Patch

diff --git a/Documentation/gitfaq.txt b/Documentation/gitfaq.txt
index cea293cf07..e93785f2f8 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitfaq.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitfaq.txt
@@ -289,6 +289,26 @@  way of cloning it in lesser space?::
 	would mean fetching only the top level commits of the repository
 	See linkgit:git-clone[1].
 
+[[fetching-and-pulling]]
+How do I know if I want to do a fetch or a pull?::
+	A fetch brings in the latest changes made upstream (i.e., the
+	remote repository we are working on). This allows us to inspect
+	the changes made upstream and integrate all those changes (if
+	and only if we want to) or only cherry pick certain changes.
+	Fetching does not have any immediate effects on the local
+	repository.
+
+	A pull is a wrapper for a fetch and merge. This means that doing
+	a `git pull` will not only fetch the changes made upstream but
+	integrate them as well with our local repository. The merge may
+	go smoothly or have merge conflicts depending on the case. A pull
+	does not allow you to review any changes made upstream but rather
+	merge those changes on their own.
++
+This is the reason why it is sometimes advised to fetch the changes
+first and then merge them accordingly because not every change might
+be of utility to the user.
+
 Hooks
 -----