Re: [PATCH 2/2] refs_resolve_ref_unsafe: handle d/f conflicts for writes

> On 10/06/2017 07:16 PM, Jeff King wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 06, 2017 at 07:09:10PM +0200, Michael Haggerty wrote:
>>
>>> I do have one twinge of uneasiness at a deeper level, that I haven't had
>>> time to check...
>>>
>>> Does this patch make it easier to *set* HEAD to an unborn branch that
>>> d/f conflicts with an existing reference? If so, that might be a
>>> slightly worse UI for users. I'd rather learn about such a problem when
>>> setting HEAD (when I am thinking about the new branch name and am in the
>>> frame of mind to solve the problem) rather than later, when I try to
>>> commit to the new branch.
>>
>> Good question. The answer is no, it's allowed both before and after my
>> patch. At least via git-symbolic-ref.
>>
>> I agree it would be nice to know earlier for such a case. For
>> symbolic-ref, we probably should allow it, because it's plumbing that
>> may be used for tricky things. For things like "checkout -b", you'd
>> generally get a timely warning as we try to create the ref.
>>
>> The odd man out is "checkout --orphan", which leaves the branch unborn.
>> It might be nice if it did a manual check that the ref is available (and
>> also that it's syntactically acceptable, though I think we may do that
>> already).
>>
>> But all of that is orthogonal to this fix, I think.
> 
> Thanks for checking. Yes, I totally agree that this is orthogonal.