CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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Mihai
Mihai

Reputation: 10767

Do I have to run "git pull" after "git clone"?

I have seen a few people running:

git clone <url>
git pull

I personally only ran git clone <url> for all the projects are worked for.

I read in the documentation this:

   After the clone, a plain git fetch without arguments will update all the remote-tracking branches, and a git pull without arguments will in addition merge the remote master branch into the current master branch, if any (this is untrue when "--single-branch" is given; see below).

but it didn't really give me a reason for it.

My question is: What is the added value of git pull when I just cloned the project a second ago? Should I always run a git pull as well after git clone <url>?

Thanks

Upvotes: 15

Views: 11098

Answers (3)

stricq
stricq

Reputation: 866

Many times I have run into issues where a git clone did NOT get everything from the server. Even though it is has not been very long, maybe a few minutes, and there is no one else making changes. Creating a new branch, running git clone on the new branch, make a few changes, then a git push errors saying that the local is not up to date with the repository. To this day I have no idea why creating a branch and then cloning that branch does not get everything up to date on the local, but it happens often.

Upvotes: 0

chevybow
chevybow

Reputation: 11978

My question is: What is the added value of git pull when I just cloned the project a second ago? Should I always run a git pull as well after git clone ?

It ensures that your code is the most up-to-date prior to you working on it. I get into the habit of running git pull prior to working on any new development as a sanity check to make sure no other developers pushed any code.

If the clone took a second and you start working on it immediately- its virtually unlikely that there will be any changes you missed. But its still a good habit to make sure you have the latest changes, even if you're reasonable sure you're up-to-date.

Upvotes: 4

Daniel Mann
Daniel Mann

Reputation: 59073

The answer is "it depends". How long did it take to clone the repo? Do you think someone has made additional commits since you cloned it? If the answer to that is "yes", then pull.

If the clone took 5 seconds, it's not likely. If it took 30 minutes, maybe.

There's no harm in doing a pull immediately after a clone.

Upvotes: 17

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