From: "Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Harald Nordgren <haraldnordgren@gmail.com>,
Yoichi Nakayama <yoichi.nakayama@gmail.com>,
"D. Ben Knoble" <ben.knoble@gmail.com>,
Yoichi NAKAYAMA <yoichi.nakayama@gmail.com>,
Yoichi NAKAYAMA <yoichi.nakayama@gmail.com>
Subject: [PATCH v5 2/2] worktree add: improve message for ambiguous remote branch name
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:50:58 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <777862235e884f4fa704c4feb99df17b1da83038.1787143859.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <pull.2197.v5.git.1787143859.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
From: Yoichi NAKAYAMA <yoichi.nakayama@gmail.com>
When the user runs 'git worktree add ../foo-dir bar-topic' command
that does not exactly say which remote they want to work with, and
there is no local branch named bar-topic, we try to guess which remote
by passing bar-topic then create a new branch named bar-topic which
tracks the remote branch.
If there are multiple remotes that have branch named bar-topic, we
silently gave up, leaving the variable 'branch' intact. Then we
entered the conditional clause 'if (!opts.orphan &&
!lookup_commit_reference_by_name(branch))' and triggered "invalid
reference" error. This error message did not contain enough
information to resolve the issue where the remote could not be
guessed.
To improve the situation, we display a hint and a descriptive error
message and die immediately when multiple matching branches are found.
Signed-off-by: Yoichi NAKAYAMA <yoichi.nakayama@gmail.com>
---
builtin/worktree.c | 34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
t/t2400-worktree-add.sh | 4 ++--
2 files changed, 34 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/builtin/worktree.c b/builtin/worktree.c
index 22c8e5e131..30d7a8c340 100644
--- a/builtin/worktree.c
+++ b/builtin/worktree.c
@@ -788,6 +788,25 @@ static char *dwim_branch(const char *path, char **new_branch)
return NULL;
}
+static void advise_ambiguous_remote(const char *path, const char *branch,
+ const struct string_list *matched_remote_names)
+{
+ struct string_list_item *item;
+
+ advise(_("Branches with the same name appears in multiple remotes:"));
+ for_each_string_list_item(item, matched_remote_names) {
+ advise(_(" %s"), item->string);
+ }
+ advise(_("If you meant to create a worktree from a remote tracking branch on\n"
+ "<remote>, you can do so by:\n"
+ "\n"
+ " git worktree add -b %s %s <remote>/%s\n"
+ "\n"
+ "If you'd like to always prefer some remote, e.g. 'origin',\n"
+ "consider setting checkout.defaultRemote=origin in your config."),
+ branch, path, branch);
+}
+
static int add(int ac, const char **av, const char *prefix,
struct repository *repo UNUSED)
{
@@ -900,15 +919,26 @@ static int add(int ac, const char **av, const char *prefix,
} else if (ac == 2) {
struct object_id oid;
struct commit *commit;
- char *remote;
commit = lookup_commit_reference_by_name(branch);
if (!commit) {
- remote = unique_tracking_name(branch, &oid, NULL, NULL);
+ char *remote;
+ int num_matches = 0;
+ struct string_list matched_remote_names = STRING_LIST_INIT_DUP;
+
+ remote = unique_tracking_name(branch, &oid, &num_matches,
+ &matched_remote_names);
if (remote) {
new_branch = branch;
branch = new_branch_to_free = remote;
+ } else if (num_matches > 1) {
+ if (!opts.quiet &&
+ advice_enabled(ADVICE_CHECKOUT_AMBIGUOUS_REMOTE_BRANCH_NAME))
+ advise_ambiguous_remote(path, branch, &matched_remote_names);
+ die(_("'%s' matched multiple (%d) remote tracking branches"),
+ branch, num_matches);
}
+ string_list_clear(&matched_remote_names, 0);
}
if (!strcmp(branch, "HEAD"))
diff --git a/t/t2400-worktree-add.sh b/t/t2400-worktree-add.sh
index 87b926728a..5c105cf252 100755
--- a/t/t2400-worktree-add.sh
+++ b/t/t2400-worktree-add.sh
@@ -624,12 +624,12 @@ test_expect_success '"add" <path> <branch> dwims' '
test_expect_success '"add" <path> <branch> dwims with checkout.defaultRemote' '
test_when_finished rm -rf repo_upstream repo_dwim foo &&
setup_remote_repo repo_upstream repo_dwim &&
- git init repo_dwim &&
(
cd repo_dwim &&
git remote add repo_upstream2 ../repo_upstream &&
git fetch repo_upstream2 &&
- test_must_fail git worktree add ../foo foo &&
+ test_must_fail git worktree add ../foo foo 2>error.actual &&
+ test_grep "matched multiple (2) remote tracking branches" error.actual &&
git -c checkout.defaultRemote=repo_upstream worktree add ../foo foo &&
git status -uno --porcelain >status.actual &&
test_must_be_empty status.actual
--
gitgitgadget
prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-08-19 12:51 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 25+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-08-08 8:21 [PATCH] worktree add: improve message for ambiguous remote branch name Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget
2026-08-08 17:00 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-08-08 21:57 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-08-09 7:45 ` Harald Nordgren
2026-08-09 18:19 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-08-10 10:12 ` Harald Nordgren
2026-08-09 18:17 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-08-10 13:04 ` Yoichi Nakayama
2026-08-10 13:00 ` Yoichi Nakayama
2026-08-10 13:07 ` D. Ben Knoble
2026-08-10 13:35 ` Yoichi Nakayama
2026-08-10 15:06 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-08-10 21:36 ` Yoichi Nakayama
2026-08-11 16:38 ` Ben Knoble
2026-08-12 13:14 ` Yoichi Nakayama
2026-08-10 15:07 ` [PATCH v2] " Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget
2026-08-10 20:55 ` [PATCH v3] " Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget
2026-08-11 0:03 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-08-11 6:31 ` Yoichi Nakayama
2026-08-12 19:22 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-08-15 4:36 ` Yoichi Nakayama
2026-08-11 6:35 ` [PATCH v4] " Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget
2026-08-19 12:50 ` [PATCH v5 0/2] " Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget
2026-08-19 12:50 ` [PATCH v5 1/2] checkout: " Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget
2026-08-19 12:50 ` Yoichi NAKAYAMA via GitGitGadget [this message]
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