This post shows how to checkout github pull requests (PRs) locally to test before merging.

Note: This post significantly qouted from this gist by Bert Belder, a.k.a @piscisaureus and it's comments, just for documentation (JFD) purpose.

Method 1

Step 1: Checking out PRs

Locate the section for your github remote in the .git/config file. It looks like this:

[remote "origin"]
	fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
	url = git@github.com:KINGSABRI/MyRepository.git

Now add the line fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/* to this section. Obviously, change the github url to match your project's URL. It ends up looking like this:

[remote "origin"]
	fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
	url = git@github.com:KINGSABRI/MyRepository.git
	fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*

Step 2: Fetch All PRs

$ git fetch origin
From github.com:KINGSABRI/MyRepository
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1000/head -> origin/pr/1000
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1002/head -> origin/pr/1002
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1004/head -> origin/pr/1004
 * [new ref]         refs/pull/1009/head -> origin/pr/1009
...

Step 3: Check out a Particular pull request

$ git checkout pr/1000
Branch pr/999 set up to track remote branch pr/999 from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'pr/999'

Method 2

By adding the other user's repository url as a remote repository

git remote add other_user other_user_repo_url
git fetch other_user
git checkout -b other_user_branch other_user/branch

Method 3

For featching only one pull request

  git fetch origin pull/7324/head:pr-7324
  • origin points to the remote server.
  • pull/7324/head is the remote pull request.
  • pr-7324 is the local pull-request branch.