title: How do you get git to always pull from a specific branch?
body: <p>I'm not a git master, but I have been working with it for some time now, with several different projects.  In each project, I always <code>git clone [repository]</code> and from that point, can always <code>git pull</code>, so long as I don't have outstanding changes, of course.</p>
  
  <p>Recently, I had to revert to a previous branch, and did so with <code>git checkout 4f82a29</code>.  When I was again ready to pull, I found that I had to set my branch back to master.  Now, I can not pull using a straight <code>git pull</code> but instead, have to specify <code>git pull origin master</code>, which is annoying, and indicates to me that I don't fully understand what is going on.</p>
  
  <p>What has changed which does not allow me to do a straight <code>git pull</code> without specifying origin master, and how to I change it back?</p>
  
  <p>UPDATE:</p>
  
  <pre><code>-bash-3.1$ cat config
  [core]
      repositoryformatversion = 0
      filemode = true
      bare = false
      logallrefupdates = true
  [branch "master"]
  [remote "origin"]
      url = git@github.com:user/project.git
      fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>UPDATE 2: To be clear, I understand that my original method may have been incorrect, but I need to fix this repo so that I can simply use <code>git pull</code> again.  Currently, git pull results in:</p>
  
  <pre><code>-bash-3.1$ git pull
  You asked me to pull without telling me which branch you
  want to merge with, and 'branch.master.merge' in
  your configuration file does not tell me either.  Please
  name which branch you want to merge on the command line and
  try again (e.g. 'git pull  ').
  See git-pull(1) for details on the refspec.
  
  If you often merge with the same branch, you may want to
  configure the following variables in your configuration
  file:
  
      branch.master.remote = 
      branch.master.merge = 
      remote..url = 
      remote..fetch = 
  
  See git-config(1) for details.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can tell <code>git pull</code> which branch to merge, and it works correctly, but <code>git pull</code> does not work as it did originally before my <code>git checkout</code>.</p>