How to pull changes from GitHub?

 
Step 1: Ensure Git is installed and configured
 

• Open your terminal (macOS/Linux) or Command Prompt/PowerShell (Windows).
• Verify your Git installation by checking the version.

git --version

• If you see a version number (e.g., git version 2.x.x), Git is installed.
• If Git is not installed, download and install it from https://git-scm.com/downloads.
• Optionally configure your name and email for commits:

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

 
Step 2: Navigate to your local Git repository
 

• Use the cd command to change directory into your project folder, where you already cloned the repository or initialized Git.

cd /path/to/your/local/repo

• Ensure you are inside a Git repository by checking its status.

git status

 
Step 3: Check the remote repository configuration
 

• List configured remotes to confirm the GitHub URL.

git remote -v

• You should see entries for “origin” pointing to your GitHub repo via HTTPS or SSH.
• If “origin” is missing, add it with:

git remote add origin https://github.com/username/repo.git

 
Step 4: Fetch the latest commits without merging
 

• Fetching updates the remote-tracking branches under refs/remotes/origin/ without modifying your working files.

git fetch origin

• You’ll see output showing new commits being downloaded.
• No merges have occurred yet; you are just updating your local remote references.

 
Step 5: Pull changes from the remote branch into your current branch
 

• Use git pull to fetch and then merge changes from origin into your current local branch.

git pull origin main

• Replace main with the name of the branch you want (e.g., master, develop, feature-branch).
• If your local branch is already tracking origin/main, you can simply run:

git pull

 
Step 6: Resolve any merge conflicts
 

• If Git reports conflicts, open each conflicting file marked with <<<<<<<, =======, and >>>>>>> markers.
• Edit the file to combine changes, remove markers, and ensure it compiles/runs correctly.

# After fixing conflicts
git add path/to/conflicted-file
git commit

• The commit message editor will open to finalize the merge; save and close it to complete.

 
Step 7: Verify that your local repository is up to date
 

• Check the status to ensure there are no pending changes:

git status

• View the git log to see the merged commits:

git log --oneline --graph --decorate