Re: master^ is not a local branch -- huh?!?

[Jacob Helwig <jacob.helwig@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 13:16, Ron1 <ron1@flownet.com> wrote:
> I know that master^ is a commit and not a branch.  I thought I was
> invoking the third variant of git-checkout (as given on the git-checkout
> man page) and checking out a commit (which the man page calls a
> tree-ish).
>
> In any case, since my question seems to have sparked some discussion,
> I'd like to offer two observations:
>
> 1.  Saying "isn't a local branch" is mightily confusing, because it is
> ambiguous whether the problem is that it isn't a branch or if it isn't
> local.
>
> 2.  If I pass something to git checkout (or any other command for that
> matter) that it expects to be a branch but isn't a branch it would be
> much better if it just gave an error and did nothing rather than give a
> (confusing) warning and try to extrapolate the user's intentions.
> Whatever a user could possibly mean by 'git checkout master^' it is
> almost certainly not what that command actually does at the moment.
>

I don't think that #2 would be possible.  My understanding is that
branches are basically just there as convenient "names" for arbitrary
commits.  In other words (in my understanding): There is no place that
expects a "branch" where a commit (SHA-1) would not work (and be a
perfectly valid use).