Github Branch,Tag: How to get a specific release of a code?

Question

I'm new to Git hub and I got confused about the concept of tag and branch(explained here) I would like to get an stable version of PhantomJS(version 2.1.0) from git hub. But I don't understand if I should do:

git checkout master
git remote add upstream https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs.git
git fetch upstream
git rebase --onto tags/2.1.0 upstream/master master

or

git init
git remote add -t 2.1 -f origin https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs.git
git checkout 2.1

Would you please explain me which one and why?

Answer 1

You should just clone the repository and then checkout the tag:

$ git clone https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs.git
$ cd phantomjs
$ git checkout 2.1

Keep in mind that being on a tag, you cannot commit any local change you would make. For that, you must be on a branch. What can be confusing is that the command is git checkout for both branches and tags.

Answer 2

I am not sure if I understood your question correctly but I will try to answer on it:

Git stores data about all changes that made in code (this include data about branches and tags) When you clone a repository you will get complete history for that repository

So, git clone https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs.git will clone project
If you have forked project you can do
git clone https://github.com/<YOUR_USERNAME>/phantomjs.git

Now change directory to phantomjs: cd phantomjs/

To see history you can execute git log or git log --oneline --decorate --graph for prettier view

To list all tags on repository execute
git tag

Finally, to create branch with tag 2.1.0 execute
git checkout 2.1.0 -b v2.1.0
After this you will have two branches master and v2.1.0

I hope this helps