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Git: Fetch and Pull

Fetching and pulling are used to get updates from a remote repository. The key difference is how they integrate those changes.

Fetch Changes

Basic Fetch

Fetch changes from remote

git fetch [remote]

Downloads commits, files, and refs from a remote repository into your local repository without automatically merging them. This lets you inspect the changes before integrating them.

Fetch and prune

Fetch changes and remove deleted branches

git fetch --prune [remote]

This command fetches changes from the remote and removes any remote-tracking references that no longer exist on the remote.

Pull Changes

Pull changes from remote

git pull [remote] [branch]

Fetches changes from a remote and immediately merges them into your current branch. Like `git push`, if you don't specify [remote] and [branch], it defaults to your upstream branch.