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

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 29, 2010, 21:49 UTC
Message-ID: <7vr5p8h994.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.00.1001291614550.1681@xanadu.home>

Nicolas Pitre <nico@fluxnic.net> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

>> These days, you can say "git checkout topic" to automagically create a
>> local "topic" branch that forks from "origin/topic" remote tracking branch
>> when you have one, thanks to Dscho's UI improvement ideas (one less
>> reason you may end up on a detached HEAD state without wanting to).
>
> If this is the case then I'm really disappointed.
>
> With all due respects, I don't share Dscho's sentiment about Git's 
> alleged non user-friendliness.  And I always praised Git's ability to 
> use a detached head to check out a remote branch, and never had any 
> problem teaching this concept to people.  So the above is not a UI 
> improvement at all to me.

Just in case you misunderstood...

This is "git checkout topic", not "git checkout origin/topic". The rule kicks in when you do not have local branch "topic" and there is a unique "refs/remotes/*/topic". Existing ways to explicitly ask for detaching are unaffected, so "checkout origin/topic" or "checkout origin/topic^0" do what you expect.

We used to just say "topic is not a rev nor path" and failed when the user sayd "git checkout topic".

Because this cannot be any request other than to check out a local branch "topic", and because there is no place more sensible than the "topic" taken from the "origin" (as that is the sole place that has "topic"), it dwims as a shorthand for "checkout -b topic origin/topic" and tells you that it did so.