How can I push a local branch to a remote Git repository and set it to track the remote branch?

General Discussions
#1

How can I push a local branch to a remote Git repository and set it to track the remote branch?

Here’s what I need to do:

  1. Create a local branch from another branch (using git branch or git checkout -b).

  2. Push the local branch to the remote repository (i.e., publish it), and set it up to track the remote branch so that git pull and git push will work seamlessly.

#2

Hi Naomi,

In Git 1.7.0 and later, you can create and switch to a new branch with:

git checkout -b <branch>

After making your changes, adding, and committing, push the branch with the -u option (short for --set-upstream):

git push -u origin <branch>

This command sets up the tracking information for the branch during the push.

#3

Before the introduction of git push -u, there wasn’t an option to achieve your goal directly with git push. You had to manually add new configuration settings.

To create a new branch and push it:

$ git checkout -b branchB
$ git push origin branchB:branchB

Then, use the git config command to set up tracking:

$ git config branch.branchB.remote origin
$ git config branch.branchB.merge refs/heads/branchB

Alternatively, you can manually edit the .git/config file to add the tracking information:

[branch "branchB"]
    remote = origin
    merge = refs/heads/branchB
#4

In short, to create a new local branch, use:

git branch <branch-name>

To push it to the remote repository and set up tracking, use:

git push -u origin <branch-name>