From: Tay Ray Chuan <rctay89@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:08:27 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] builtin/checkout: DWIM with -f -b
Message-ID: <AANLkTik3QZBpOjwZHGwIXphXnaHLaBV4pUSb1OVAau9V@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7vfx0htfer.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Hi,

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 8:09 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
>
>> ...  For your workflow, I
>> doubt it matters, but it is potentially destructive.
>
> Yes; I thought the implication of "-f" to be destructive would be a
> justification enough, but I agree with you that conflating the two may be
> a bad idea.  When a user says "git checkout -f -b jch" after seeing the
> command without "-f" fail due to existing "jch", it is quite clear that
> the user wants to clobber the history of existing "jch" branch (why else
> would he giving "-f"), but it is not a justification to clobber local
> changes he has in the index and the work tree.

How about doing

  git checkout -f -f -b <branch>

?

By having the user to specify "-f" twice, we're can be really sure
that the user wants to

  1) throw away local changes, which is what the current "-f" is
supposed to do, and
  2) reset an existing branch - new behaviour.


-- 
Cheers,
Ray Chuan