How to pull a branch from origin in GitHub

GitHub contains fixed commands to perform various tasks and actions.

To include a project from GitHub to a local repository, we must write the git pull command.

Why would we pull a remote branch?

We pull a remote branch as it downloads new changes from branchname onto the remote branch named origin and integrates them into our local branch.

branches in git

Branches are the different realities of a master branch. We can create several branches and merge them with our primary working branch, called the master branch.

Syntax

We can use git pull as an alternative to git fetch and git merge in the same command.

Git does not merge the changes from the branches into our current master. But, suppose we’ve checked out the branch master, and now we want to merge in the remote branch branchname.

To integrate this command into our project, we write it in the following way:

git pull origin branchname

Explanation

The origin is the remote branch which is the primary working directory of a project. All other branches merge into this branch.

branchname is just another branch, or a copy of the original branch, where developers code independently. And after the final review from testers, these local branches merge with the master branch origin.

When we write the above command, git is applying two commands:

git fetch origin branchname && git merge branchname

Purpose of the git pull origin branchname command

The git pull origin branchname generally tells the git to pull/fetch (projects and data) from the remote repo named origin to our branchname, illustrated in the figure below.