Re: Why won't git checkout a branch?

From: Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 1, 2020, 10:45 UTC
Message-ID: <CAH8yC8=SgS1=mpSM_7j8FQzreVPfE5U_tnsCz9ixZoBHLUuM7A@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <87lfk3czae.fsf@igel.home>

On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 6:20 AM Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:

Show 22 quoted lines

>
> On Jul 01 2020, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 5:50 AM Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Jul 01 2020, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> >>
> >> > $ git checkout m4
> >>
> >> Try a newer git version:
> >>
> >> $ git checkout m4
> >> fatal: 'm4' could be both a local file and a tracking branch.
> >> Please use -- (and optionally --no-guess) to disambiguate
> >
> > Ack, thanks.
> >
> > This does not look normal, either. I don't want to create a new
> > branch. I want to work on the existing branch.
>
> To disambiguate, use `git checkout m4 --' if you want the branch, and
> `git checkout -- m4' if you want the local file.

Perfect, thanks.

So the way to checkout that always works is to append --. Is that correct?

If so, I will start using it everywhere.

Jeff