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Development Tools Git Basics Getting Started With Git Looking Back on What We've Done

Christopher Borchert
Christopher Borchert
14,814 Points
Posted by Christopher Borchert
Christopher Borchert
14,814 Points

Discrepancy between the video and the challenge (HEAD vs master), which should I use?

In the video, the instructor said that git checkout master would return us to the most recent commit, but the challenge had us use git checkout HEAD. Is this something I should commit to memory? When do I use (if ever) get checkout HEAD?

1 Answer

Ethan Lowry
PLUS
Ethan Lowry
Courses Plus Student 7,323 Points
Ethan Lowry
Ethan Lowry
Courses Plus Student 7,323 Points

HEAD refers to the most recent commit of whatever branch you're currently on. So if you already have the master branch checked out, then 'git checkout master' and 'git checkout HEAD' will basically do the exact same thing, as you suspected. Just remember that when you're on a branch other than master, then 'git checkout master' will bring you back on to the master branch again.

Using 'checkout HEAD' might be handy to remember because it can be used in a variety of different ways, for example the following will check out the code 2 commits prior to HEAD:

git checkout HEAD~2

Hope that helps.

Matthew Newman
Matthew Newman
8,741 Points

Nice explanation! I was confused about master and head as well. Now i know :)