On a new machine, how do I fetch an existing branch?

I'm not new to git, but I'm not a gitmaster.

I have an existing branch on my git account, that I would like to pull, but wh开发者_StackOverflowen I do this :

git checkout previously_created_branch

I get..

error: pathspec 'previously_created_branch' did not match any file(s) known to git.

Anyone know how to accomplish this?

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Git must know from where you want to get the branch

First fetch the changes from your remote repository:

git fetch origin

Then you can check it out with

git checkout -t origin/previously_created_branch

This will create a local branch of the same name, that tracks the remote branch

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git checkout branch-name is used to switch branches.

To pull, you should use: git pull origin branch-name, assuming that your remote is named origin.

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Maybe you're not tracking the remote branch on the new machine?

To see the list of remote branches:

git branch -r

To track the branch locally (if it isn't already):

git branch --track previously_created_branch origin/previously_created_branch