Can “git pull --all” update all my local branches?

Question

I often have at least 3 remote branches: master, staging and production. I have 3 local branches that track those remote branches.

Updating all my local branches is tedious:

git fetch --all
git rebase origin/master
git checkout staging
git rebase origin/staging
git checkout production
git rebase origin/production

I'd love to be able to just do a "git pull -all", but I haven't been able to get it to work. It seems to do a "fetch --all", then updates (fast forward or merges) the current working branch, but not the other local branches.

I'm still stuck manually switching to each local branch and updating.

Answer 1

If refs/heads/master can be fast-forwarded to refs/remotes/foo/master, the output of

git merge-base refs/heads/master refs/remotes/foo/master

should return the SHA1 id that refs/heads/master points to. With this, you can put together a script that automatically updates all local branches that have had no diverting commits applied to them.

This little shell script (I called it git-can-ff) illustrates how it can be done.

#!/bin/sh

set -x

usage() {
    echo "usage: $(basename $0) <from-ref> <to-ref>" >&2
    exit 2
}

[ $# -ne 2 ] && usage

FROM_REF=$1
TO_REF=$2

FROM_HASH=$(git show-ref --hash $FROM_REF)
TO_HASH=$(git show-ref --hash $TO_REF)
BASE_HASH=$(git merge-base $FROM_REF $TO_REF)

if [ "$BASE_HASH" = "$FROM_HASH" -o \
     "$BASE_HASH" = "$FROM_REF" ]; then
    exit 0
else
    exit 1
fi

Answer 2

As of git 2.9:

git pull --rebase --autostash

See https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rebase

Automatically create a temporary stash before the operation begins, and apply it after the operation ends. This means that you can run rebase on a dirty worktree. However, use with care: the final stash application after a successful rebase might result in non-trivial conflicts.

Answer 3

It can be done using below script... It will first fetch all branches and checkout one by one and update by itself.

#!/bin/bash
git branch -r | grep -v '\->' | while read remote; do git branch --track 
"${remote#origin/}" "$remote"; done

set -x
CURRENT=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
git fetch --all
branch_name=$(git branch | awk '{print $1" "}' | grep -v '*' | xargs)
for branch in $branch_name; do
   git checkout "$branch" || exit 1
   git rebase "origin/$branch" || exit 1
   git pull origin $branch|| exit 1
done
git checkout "$CURRENT" || exit 1
git pull || exit 1

Answer 4

This still isn't automatic, as I wish there was an option for - and there should be some checking to make sure that this can only happen for fast-forward updates (which is why manually doing a pull is far safer!!), but caveats aside you can:

git fetch origin
git update-ref refs/heads/other-branch origin/other-branch

to update the position of your local branch without having to check it out.

Note: you will be losing your current branch position and moving it to where the origin's branch is, which means that if you need to merge you will lose data!

Answer 5

A script I wrote for my GitBash. Accomplishes the following:

• By default pulls from origin for all branches that are setup to track origin, allows you to specify a different remote if desired.
• If your current branch is in a dirty state then it stashes your changes and will attempt to restore these changes at the end.
• For each local branch that is set up to track a remote branch will:
  • git checkout branch
  • git pull origin
• Finally, will return you to your original branch and restore state.

** I use this but have not tested thoroughly, use at own risk. See an example of this script in a .bash_alias file here.

    # Do a pull on all branches that are tracking a remote branches, will from origin by default.
    # If current branch is dirty, will stash changes and reply after pull.
    # Usage: pullall [remoteName]
    alias pullall=pullAll
    function pullAll (){
     # if -h then show help
     if [[ $1 == '-h' ]]
    then
      echo "Description: Pulls new changes from upstream on all branches that are tracking remotes."
      echo 
      echo "Usage: "
      echo "- Default: pullall"
      echo "- Specify upstream to pull from: pullall [upstreamName]"
      echo "- Help: pull-all -h"
    else

     # default remote to origin
     remote="origin"
     if [ $1 != "" ]
     then
       remote=$1
     fi

     # list all branches that are tracking remote
     # git branch -vv : list branches with their upstreams
     # grep origin : keep only items that have upstream of origin
     # sed "s/^.."... : remove leading *
     # sed "s/^"..... : remove leading white spaces
     # cut -d" "..... : cut on spaces, take first item
     # cut -d splits on space, -f1 grabs first item
     branches=($(git branch -vv | grep $remote | sed "s/^[ *]*//" | sed "s/^[ /t]*//" | cut -d" " -f1))

     # get starting branch name
     startingBranch=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)

     # get starting stash size
     startingStashSize=$(git stash list | wc -l)

     echo "Saving starting branch state: $startingBranch"
     git stash

     # get the new stash size
     newStashSize=$(git stash list | wc -l)

     # for each branch in the array of remote tracking branches
     for branch in ${branches[*]}
     do
       echo "Switching to $branch"
       git checkout $branch

       echo "Pulling $remote"
       git pull $remote

     done

     echo "Switching back to $startingBranch"
     git checkout $startingBranch

     # compare before and after stash size to see if anything was stashed
     if [ "$startingStashSize" -lt "$newStashSize" ]
     then
       echo "Restoring branch state"
       git stash pop
     fi
    fi
    }

Answer 6

The script from @larsmans, a bit improved:

#!/bin/sh

set -x
CURRENT=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
git fetch --all
for branch in "$@"; do
  if ["$branch" -ne "$CURRENT"]; then
    git checkout "$branch" || exit 1
    git rebase "origin/$branch" || exit 1
  fi
done
git checkout "$CURRENT" || exit 1
git rebase "origin/$CURRENT" || exit 1

This, after it finishes, leaves working copy checked out from the same branch as it was before the script was called.

The git pull version:

#!/bin/sh

set -x
CURRENT=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD`
git fetch --all
for branch in "$@"; do
  if ["$branch" -ne "$CURRENT"]; then
    git checkout "$branch" || exit 1
    git pull || exit 1
  fi
done
git checkout "$CURRENT" || exit 1
git pull || exit 1