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This tutorial will merge a remote git branch into a local branch by cloning the remote repository and updating the changes locally.

Merge remote branches into local branches in Git by cloning the remote repository and updating the changes locally

We will clone a remote repository that contains two branches, namely mainand gh-pages.

We will then create a local branch test and update the remote branch gh-pages. After this, we will pull gh-pagesthe remote changes from and merge them into the test branch.

<!-- The command to use is -->
git clone <remote-repo-url>
    
<!-- From your terminal run -->
git clone https://github.com/KEVINAMAYI/AkanNameGenerator.git

Output:

Cloning into 'AkanNameGenerator'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 94, done.
remote: Total 94 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 94
Unpacking objects: 100% (94/94), 2.38 MiB | 1.86 MiB/s, done.

Using the command below, we will enter the project folder and the list of available branches.

<!-- get into project folder -->
cd AkanNameGenerator

<!-- List branches available -->
git branch -a

Output:

<!-- The asterix indicates we are on branch main -->
* main
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/main
remotes/origin/gh-pages
remotes/origin/main

Next, we'll create a local branch testing.

git branch test

We will then switch to our local branch for testing.

git checkout test

Output:

Switched to branch 'test.'

Before merging into the testing branch, we continue to update our by running this command gh-pages.

git fetch origin gh-pages

Output:

remote: Enumerating objects: 7, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (7/7), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.
remote: Total 4 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (4/4), 726 bytes | 363.00 KiB/s, done.
From https://github.com/KEVINAMAYI/AkanNameGenerator
* branch            gh-pages   -> FETCH_HEAD
4a458ff..4edc95b  gh-pages   -> origin/gh-pages

After updating, we merge the remote branch gh-pagesfor testing.

git merge origin/gh-pages

Output (if gh-pagesthere are any changes in branch):

Updating f25a425..4a458ff
Fast-forward
js/global.js | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Output (if branch gh-pageshas no changes):

Already up to date.

In Git, merge remote branches into local branches by tracking and pulling changes from remote repositories

We will now clone a remote repository that contains two branches, masterand gh-pages. We will then create a local branch another-branchand set it up to track any and pull mainchanges made on the remote branch.

<!-- The command to use is -->
git clone <remote-repo-url>
    
<!-- From your terminal run -->
git clone https://github.com/KEVINAMAYI/AkanNameGenerator.git

Output:

Cloning into 'AkanNameGenerator'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 94, done.
remote: Total 94 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 94
Unpacking objects: 100% (94/94), 2.38 MiB | 1.86 MiB/s, done.

Next, we need to go into the project folder and list the available branches via:

<!-- get into project folder -->
cd AkanNameGenerator

<!-- List branches available -->
git branch -a

Output:

<!-- The asterix indicates we are on branch main -->
* main
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/main
remotes/origin/gh-pages
remotes/origin/main

We will create a local branch another-branch.

git branch another-branch

We will switch to our local branch another-branch.

git checkout another-branch

Output:

Switched to branch 'another-branch'

We then set up a branch to another-branchtrack mainchanges from the remote repository.

git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/main another-branch

Output:

Branch 'another-branch' set up to track remote branch 'main' from 'origin'.

We can now directly pull mainchanges from the remote branch.

git pull

Output:

Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.
README.md | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)