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This article will introduce how to establish the relationship between local branches and remote branches.

Git calls set upstreamto establish this relationship.

A local branch is called a tracking branch, and the branch it tracks - a remote branch - is called 上游a branch.

The purpose of setting up upstream is to make git pushand git pulleasier.

Imagine you have a long branch name like this, feature/a-long-long-branch-for-feature-A.

Without setting the upstream branch, you need to explicitly execute git commit with the branch name git push.

For example:

git push origin feature/a-long-long-branch-for-feature-A

It's shorter and you can get rid of the branch name you're working on after setting the upstream branch.

Just execute git push, clear and concise.

To set the upstream when the remote branch has not yet been created, use --set-upstream-tothe -r option with git pushthe -p command.

git push --set-upstream-to origin <branch_name>

or its shorter version,

git push -u origin <branch_name>

$ git push -u origin master
Enumerating objects: 17, done.
...
remote: Create a pull request for 'master' on GitHub by visiting:
...
To github.com:username/repo_name.git
 * [new branch]      master -> master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.

To set the upstream when the remote branch already exists, use the following command.

git branch --set-upstream-to origin/<branch_name>

or,

git branch -u origin/<branch_name>

For example,

$ git branch -u origin/master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.

Another benefit of setting upstream is to indicate unsynchronized commits between local and remote branches.

$ git branch -u origin/master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.
$ touch file.txt
$ git add file.txt && git commit -m 'Add file.txt'
$ git status
On branch master
Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
  (use "git push" to publish your local commits)

To cancel the upstream setting, use git branch --unset-upstream; then, git statusno extra information will be displayed.

$ git branch --unset-upstream
$ git status
On branch master
nothing to commit, working tree clean