Local Copies of Remote Branches Solution - How to Use Git and GitHub

To answer this question, let's think
about what commits were present on

GitHub and in your local repository
before and after git fetch.

When you cloned the repository,

the latest commit on it was Larry's
commit adding the chili recipe, so

that also became the latest
commit in your local repository.

Of course,
there were other previous commits, but

I'm leaving them out here for
the sake of space.

Now you made a commit
adding a new spice, so

that commit is also present
in your local repository.

And that's where your master branch is.

origin/master still points to
the commit that was on the remote at

the time that you cloned.

After you cloned, Sarah added
the no cumin commit on GitHub, but

your origin/master branch
won't reflect that yet.

So, this is the state
of master on GitHub.

Now, this was the state of

both repositories right
before you ran git fetch.

So, if you ran git log origin/master,
you should have seen that Larry's commit

adding the chili recipe was present,
but your commit adding a new spice and

Sarah's commit removing cumin were not
present on the origin/master branch.

If you run git status, you should have
seen that your branch was ahead of

origin/master by one commit.

This makes sense because git log and git
status both run without internet access.

Suppose you were somewhere
without internet access when you

ran these commands.

Your local git repository would have
no idea that the cumin commit existed.

So, of course, the cumin commit
wouldn't be shown when you ran git

log origin/master.

And git status wouldn't know that your
branches were actually out of sync.

It thinks that your
branch is just ahead.

Now when you run git fetch,
git fetches the no cumin commit and

updates the branch origin/master
to point to that new commit.

Your local master still points at
the new spice commit like it did before.

So at this point, you have a local
copy of the no cumin commit saved, and

you can access it via git log.

If you run git log now,
you'll see both the no cumin commit and

the chili commit.

You still won't see your new
spice commit since that's only on

your local master branch.

Now, since both origin slash master and

master have one commit that
is not present on the other,

git status will show that your branch
is out of sync with origin/master.