Git command to checkout any branch and overwrite local changes

Question

Is there a Git command  or a short sequence of commands  that will safely and surely do the following    Get rid of any local changes  Fetch the given branch from origin if necessary Checkout the given branch    Currently I m stuck with   git fetch -p git stash git stash drop git checkout  branch git pull   but it s bothering me because I m asked for password two times  by fetch and pull   Generally I would be happy with any solution as long as the password is needed only once   A couple of notes    It s a part of homebrewed deployment script for an application  the code is hosted on GitHub   There should be no difference if the branch was already fetched from origin or not  i e  the first deployment of a new branch shouldn t ideally require any additional steps   The script is located on a remote machine that can be accessed by several people  hence no credentials are stored and user password must be entered  but only once if possible   I don t care about any local changes  I always want a pristine copy of the given branch  the further part of deployment script produces local changes   I can t clone or export a fresh repository each time  it takes too much time

User · Answer

git reset and git clean can be overkill in some situations  and be a huge waste of time    If you simply have a message like  The following untracked files would be overwritten     and you want the remote origin upstream to overwrite those conflicting untracked files  then git checkout -f  lt branch gt  is the best option   If you re like me  your other option was to clean and perform a --hard reset then recompile your project

User · Answer

You could follow a solution similar to  How do I force    git pull    to overwrite local files     git fetch --all git reset --hard origin abranch git checkout  branch    That would involve only one fetch   With Git 2 23   git checkout is replaced here with git switch  presented here   still experimental    git switch -f  branch    with -f being an alias for --discard-changes  as noted in Jan s answer      Proceed even if the index or the working tree differs from HEAD    Both the index and working tree are restored to match the switching target

User · Answer

Couple of points    I believe git stash   git stash drop could be replaced with git reset --hard     or  even shorter  add -f to checkout command   git checkout -f -b  branch   That will discard any local changes  just as if git reset --hard was used prior to checkout    As for the main question  instead of pulling in the last step  you could just merge the appropriate branch from the remote into your local branch  git merge  branch origin  branch  I believe it does not hit the remote  If that is the case  it removes the need for credensials and hence  addresses your biggest concern

User · Answer

The new git-switch command  starting in GIT 2 23  also has a flag --discard-changes which should help you  git pull might be necessary afterwards   Warning  it s still considered to be experimental

[git] Git command to checkout any branch and overwrite local changes

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