Re: "git checkout foo" is getting confused by folder named "foo"

[Jona Christopher Sahnwaldt <jc@sahnwaldt.de>]

On 25 September 2013 22:01, Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> wrote:
> Jona Christopher Sahnwaldt <jc@sahnwaldt.de> writes:
>
>> Yes, I think the rules for the "short form" (the guessing when there's
>> no --) should be made simpler, or maybe the guessing should be dropped
>> altogether. I don't know. I don't know git well enough to be able to
>> be more specific. I just find the current behavior very confusing.
>
> It can hardly be "simpler" (in the sense "behavior that can be described
> with fewer words"), but it could be tightened to be safer.
>
> When a remote branch $foo exists, a local branch $foo does not, and a
> file $foo does, then
>
>   git checkout $foo
>
> rather likely means "I want to use git checkout's DWIM and create local
> branch $foo", but it currently means to Git "checkout file foo from the
> index". It would make sense to die here, and require the use of --.

That sounds good. A rule like "when A is true, B is false, and C is
true, then X" is probably too complex to be useful. It's probably
better to give up and say "sorry, I DKWYM (don't know what you mean)".
:-)

There are a few more ideas, opinions, discussions about all this at
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18833617/why-does-git-checkout-remote-branchname-not-create-new-tracking-branch
especially in the comments.

Cheers,
JC
>
> No time to write a patch for this. Any volunteer?
>
> --
> Matthieu Moy
> http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/