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This article discusses the difference between git checkout and git clone commands in Git . If you are coming from an SVN environment, you might find yourself confused because git clonethe equivalent of in SVN is svn checkout.

By the end of this article, you will have everything you need to navigate Git repositories using the git checkoutand commands.git clone

We'll start by defining each command and discussing the workflow. Let's jump right in.

git clone command

The git clone command has only one function. When invoked, it creates a copy of the remote repository in our local machine.

It accepts the URL of the remote repository as a parameter. Following is the general syntax of the command.

$ git clone <URL>

Let’s look at an example.

Assuming we have a remote Sample-Repo repository hosted on GitHub , how can we make an identical copy on our local machine?

In this case, we will use git clonethe command. As we mentioned, this command requires the URL of the remote repository.

If you are not sure how to get the URL, follow the steps below.

1. Open your GitHub web account and navigate to the repository you want to clone.
2. Click on the Code button and copy the URL according to your authentication protocol. In our case, we will use HTTPS proxy.

To clone the repository, open your terminal, navigate to the directory you wish to clone to and run the command as shown below.

$ git clone https://github.com/Wachira11ke/Sample-Repo.git

This will create a local copy of the remote repository on our machine. You will most likely use the command once in your project git clone.

Let's continue using git checkoutthe command.

git checkout command

In git clonecontrast to commands, git checkouta command has more than one use and you probably use it every day while working on your projects.

Following are git checkoutthree common uses of the command.

1. Switching between branches
2. Cancel changes
3. Create a new branch

Create a branch using git checkout

We usually use git branchthe command to create a new branch. However, we can also use git checkoutthe command to create a branch.

git branchThe command only creates a new branch, whereas git checkoutthe command creates a new branch and switches to the newly created branch.

Let’s look at an example.

If we want to create a feature branch in git checkoutour newly cloned Sample-Repo using the command , how do we do it?

We will run the command as shown below.

$ git checkout -b feature

Switching between branches using git checkout

git checkoutCommands come in handy when we want to switch between branches in Git . Let's say we want to switch back to the master branch, how would we go about it?

We will run git checkoutthe command as shown below.

$ git checkout master

Use git checkout to cancel changes

We can also use git checkoutthe command to cancel changes made to files that have not yet been committed. Let's look at an example.

We will change the run.py file in Sample-Repo . When running the git status command, we get:

We can see that Git has suggested git checkoutdiscarding the changes made to the run.py file using the command.

$ git checkout run.py

This will discard the changes made to the file and revert it to the last committed state.

Anyway, git checkoutunlike git clonethe command, git clonethe command will create a copy of the remote repository on our local machine, and we will most likely only use it once.

On the other hand, git checkoutcommands have many uses and we use them every day.