What does push -u mean in git

In git, "push -u" means to upload the local branch version to the remote merge, and record the default value of push to the remote branch; when adding the "-u" parameter, it means next time When continuing to push the remote branch, the push command can be abbreviated as "git push".

The operating environment of this article: Windows 10 system, Git version 2.30.0, Dell G3 computer.

What does push -u mean in git

The git push command is used to upload the local branch version to the remote and merge it.

Generally, the git push command is used when pushing a local warehouse to a remote warehouse. As a novice, I saw some tutorials on the Internet. Some of them will bring a -u parameter when git push, while some do not. There is no difference in the actual results of the push. I'm just curious about what the -u parameter does?

After searching for a while, I summarized and recorded some of everyone’s explanations and analyses.

Parameter analysis:

First of all, for git push, there is this description:

-u

–set -upstream

For every branch that is up to date or successfully pushed, add upstream (tracking) reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and other commands. For more information, see branch.&lt ;name>.merge in git-config(1).

In this description, you can see that the -u parameter is related to the following variable

branch.&lt ;name>.merge

branch..merge together with branch..remote define the upstream branch of a given branch. It tells git fetch/git pull which branch to merge, and can also affect git push.

And upstream refers to the main repository that others will pull from, such as your GitHub repository. The -u option automatically sets upstream for you, linking your repository to a central repository. This way, in the future Git will "know" where you want to push to and where you want to pull from, so you can use git pull or git push without parameters.

When you git pull from a branch without specifying the source remote or branch, git looks at the branch..merge setting to know where to pull from. And it is the git push -u command that sets this information for the branch you want to push.

To put it simply, bringing the -u parameter is actually equivalent to recording the default value of push to the remote branch, so that next time we want to continue pushing the remote branch The push command can be abbreviated as git push.

Example display:

An example is shown below to illustrate this point.

andy@AndyMacBookPro:/usr/local/github/andy/php-examples$ git pull
There is no tracking information for the current branch.
Please specify which branch you want to merge with.
See git-pull(1) for details.
git pull <remote> <branch>
If you wish to set tracking information for this branch you can do so with:
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/<branch> test

This is the result if you have not used the -u parameter before and later omitted the branch parameters you want to pull. Pull because there is no track for the current branch. So it does not know where you want to pull from, so this is the meaning of the -u parameter, specifying the trach branch.

In fact, after specifying -u, you can go to .git/config to view the GIT configuration file. You can see the record of the branch "test" below:

[branch "master"] 
 remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/master 
[branch "test"]
remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/test

This way git Only then can you know the remote and merge information under the current test. If you do not bring in the -u parameter when git push, then there will be no branch "test" item in the config.

 [branch "master"]
    remote = origin
    merge = refs/heads/master

Configuration instructions, this tells Git 2 things:

When you are on the master branch, the default remote is origin.

When used on a git pullmaster branch (no remote and branch specified), use the default remote (source) and merge changes from the remote master branch.

Configuration modification

You can manually go to .git/config to modify the contents of the GIT configuration file, or you can use the command line to set these options.

 $ git config branch.master.remote origin
 $ git config branch.master.merge refs/heads/master

If you use commands to configure, it will have certain error correction capabilities. For example, you typed a branch that does not exist or you did not perform the git remote add operation. In newer git, I hope you use git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/master master

In fact, executing the command git push -u origin master with the -u parameter added is equivalent to executing

git push origin master and

git branch --set-upstream master origin/master.

So, if you are pushing code to a remote branch and want to continue pushing to the remote branch, you can add the -u parameter to the push command to simplify the subsequent push command input.

Recommended learning: "Git Tutorial"

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