From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:07:52 GMT
Subject: Re: 'git branch' when origin branch with same name exists
Message-ID: <7v62alx3ev.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <vpqa9zxan3a.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>

Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> writes:

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
>
>> Requiring starting point and failing without --force will never
>> happen, but it could be a possible approach to issue an additional
>> advice message under reasonably narrow conditions, namely:
>>
>>  - The starting point was not given explicitly;
>>
>>  - It would have DWIMed to "git checkout -t -b it origin/it" when
>>    creating the branch (I think you need to check configurations
>>    like branch.autosetupmerge and existence of the tracking branch
>>    remotes/origin/it); and
>>
>>  - advice.branchNotTrackingCorrespondingRemote is not set to false.
>
> I like that. Stg like
>
> $ git branch next
> Creating local branch next starting from <sha1>.
> If you meant to checkout a new branch 'next' to track remote branch
> 'next' from 'origin', run these commands now:
> git branch -d next; git checkout next

Oh, another precondition would be that --force was _not_ given.

It is fairly clear "git branch -f next" is asking to forcibly update
an existing local 'next' to the current HEAD, not to origin/next,
and giving the above suggestion will be mildly irritating in such a
case.