Getting The Latest Development Branch

Using gitk, it can be seen that the cloned IBCP git repository contains all of the commits (shown with blue circles), branches (shown in green boxes), and releases (tags, shown in yellow boxes) created during the project's existence.  The only local branch is master (shown in bold).  The rest of the branches are known as remote branches (shown in tan with the orange branch boxes).  The current commit is shown with a yellow circle (the currently selected commit is highlighted in blue).

All remote branches are preceded with a remotes name, followed by origin, denoting which remote the branch is from - origin is the name given to the remote repository the repository was cloned from.  These remote branches show where the branches were the last time the remote repository was accessed.  To switch to a branch using gitk, right-click on the branch and select Check out this branch.  However, only local branches can be checked out this way.

To switch to the latest development branch, which is currently remote branch remotes/origin/cmake0.1.16, a local branch needs to be created.  All branches besides master are remote branches (called tracking branches in the Git GUI).  To create a local branch for cmake0.1.16, on the Branch menu, select Create..., enter cmake0.1.16 for the Name, select Tracking Branch, select origin/cmake0.1.15, uncheck the Fetch Tracking Branch option (this options causes the remote repository to be read, but this branch is already in the local repository, so it's not necessary to read again).

The Current Branch will now be local branch cmake0.1.16.  In gitk, you can see that this branch is now checked out, by selecting Reload on the File menu (or pressing Ctrl+F5) and cmake0.1.16 will now be bold (previously master was bold).

Hit Continue... for instructions on doing these operations from the command line (for now on when command line is mentioned, this will mean either MSYS on Windows, or a Terminal on Linux and any differences between the too will be described).  Next up, building this latest development branch with CMAKE...

Command Line Instructions:

The git tag command is used to show all the release tags.  Any of these can be checked out using the git checkout tagname command.  The git branch command can be used to show all the branches, however, only master will be listed since this is the only local branch.

Use the git branch --all command to show all the branches including the remote branches.  Branches have only been used since Release 0.1.14.  For both branch0.1.14 and branch0.1.15, which have been merged to the master branch, checking out either is the same as checking out the release0.1.14 and release0.1.15 tags.

To create a local branch for cmake0.1.16 from the remote branch and to check it out, use the git checkout cmake0.1.16 command.  Doing a git branch command at this point will show two local branches.