Re: how to clone/checkout branch/tag vesion from GIT repository

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 06:39:47AM -0700, supadhyay wrote:

> I try to use below command to do clone from particular branch/version
> number. I used below command...
> 
> $ git clone -b br6-1-0 ssh://gitolite@myservername/testrep
> Cloning into 'testrep'...
> remote: Counting objects: 19536, done.
> remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5850/5850), done.
> remote: Total 19536 (delta 13869), reused 18869 (delta 13202)
> Receiving objects: 100% (19536/19536), 61.44 MiB | 17 KiB/s, done.
> Resolving deltas: 100% (13869/13869), done.
> warning: Remote branch br6-0 not found in upstream origin, using HEAD
> instead

Side note: if I repeat your experiment, I get "br6-1-0" in the error
message (i.e., what was on the command line). Is this just a cut and
paste mistake in reporting the error, or is that actually what you see?

Assuming that is the case, the problem is that git versions before
v1.7.10 did not expect a tag name with the "-b" switch. Either upgrade
to git v1.7.10, or clone and manually switch to the tag, like this:

  $ git clone ssh://.../testrep
  $ cd testrep
  $ git checkout br6-1-0

Note that if you are planning on doing work based on the tag, you
probably want to create a new branch, like:

  $ git checkout -b my-work br6-1-0

> Is there any way to findout how many branches are available in my GIT
> repository.

In your local clone, or on the remote? In the local clone, you can use
"git branch" to see local branches, or "git branch -a" to see branches
copied from the remote. To see what is available on the remote, try "git
ls-remote ssh://...".

-Peff