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I'm using Aptana and Git. When I go to create a new branch, the following dialog box shows up.

enter image description here

I was wondering what that 'track' checkbox does, and when it's most appropriate to check it.

I understand the concept of tracking in git, but mostly with files. I don't seem to understand how it applies to new branches being created?

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2 Answers 2

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12

In this case, track refers to git-checkout's and git-branch's --track option.

When a local branch is started off a remote-tracking branch, git sets up the branch so that git pull will appropriately merge from the remote-tracking branch.

From man git-branch:

-t, --track
    When creating a new branch, set up configuration to mark the
    start-point branch as "upstream" from the new branch. This
    configuration will tell git to show the relationship between the
    two branches in git status and git branch -v. Furthermore, it
    directs git pull without arguments to pull from the upstream when
    the new branch is checked out.
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4 Comments

Ah, okay. So if I create a new branch off of master and track it. I can continue working on my branch while pulling changes made in master while I was working on my branch? Let me know if I understood right, thanks!
However, both of these branches are local. So when would the merge take place?
Yes, what you say is correct. The merge would take place at git pull in any case, even if the tracked branch is local.
@MarcoLeogrande - The sentence "When a local branch is started off a remote-tracking branch" is from the git-branch man page. Shouldn't it be phrased as this: "When a local branch is started off as a remote-tracking branch"?
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I still didn't understand the answer provided by Marco, even after reading through the comments. So I decided to look into it further myself and provide an answer in layman's terms...

Local Branch: Is a path that branches off from the master branch of the Git. The master branch is the main path where changes are finally committed. The branch is local and is not linked to a remote one.

Remote Branch: Same as a 'local branch', but is situated on the remote Git. The branch is remote and is not linked to a local one.

Remote-tracking Branch:

  • They are used to link what you are working on locally, with that on the remote.
  • They know which remote branch to grab changes from when git pull or git fetch is executed. Typing git status will state how many commits ahead you are of the remote branch.

The punchline...

Using --track will create the branch and then automatically 'pull' from the chosen branch. So in this case (referring to the image in the question), a new branch will be created locally with the name 'feat/password-confirmation' and it will compare with the remote branch named 'master' (the main path on the remote)

I thought you said the master branch was local? The main path locally and on the remote are both called 'master', but only interact with git push or git pull.

You do not need to tick the 'Track' checkbox if you do not need to track the remote Git.

Hope that helps.

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