The term "tracking" often creates confusion between remote tracking branches and local branches which track a remote branch. The term "upstream" captures more clearly the idea of "branch A is based on branch B in some way", so it makes sense to mention it. At the same time, upstream branches are used for more than just git-pull these days; let's mention that here. Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> --- I think this matches nicely with Santi's recent addition of upstream to the glossary. Documentation/git-branch.txt | 24 +++++++++++++----------- Documentation/git-checkout.txt | 2 +- 2 files changed, 14 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/git-branch.txt b/Documentation/git-branch.txt index 19f1b0d..cbd4275 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-branch.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-branch.txt @@ -112,19 +112,21 @@ OPTIONS Display the full sha1s in the output listing rather than abbreviating them. --track:: - When creating a new branch, set up the configuration so that 'git-pull' - will automatically retrieve data from the start point, which must be - a branch. Use this if you always pull from the same upstream branch - into the new branch, and if you do not want to use "git pull - <repository> <refspec>" explicitly. This behavior is the default - when the start point is a remote branch. Set the - branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to `false` if you want - 'git-checkout' and 'git-branch' to always behave as if '--no-track' were - given. Set it to `always` if you want this behavior when the - start-point is either a local or remote branch. + 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. ++ +This behavior is the default when the start point is a remote branch. +Set the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to `false` if you +want `git checkout` and `git branch` to always behave as if '--no-track' +were given. Set it to `always` if you want this behavior when the +start-point is either a local or remote branch. --no-track:: - Do not set up tracking configuration, even if the + Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable is true. --contains <commit>:: diff --git a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt index 4992fc6..16d3c87 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt @@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ guessing results in an empty name, the guessing is aborted. You can explicitly give a name with '-b' in such a case. --no-track:: - Do not set up tracking configuration, even if the + Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable is true. -l:: -- 1.6.3.rc0.148.g141203.dirty -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html