Re: [PATCH v2] checkout: implement "-" shortcut name for last branch

> On Thursday 15 January 2009, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, Johannes Sixt wrote:
> > > Thomas Rast schrieb:
> > > > Let git-checkout save the old branch as a symref in LAST_HEAD,
> > > > and make 'git checkout -' switch back to LAST_HEAD, like 'cd -'
> > > > does in the shell.
> > >
> > > /me likes this feature.
> > >
> > > git rebase (-i or not) calls checkout behind the scenes if the
> > > two-argument form is used:
> > >
> > >    git rebase [-i] master topic
> > >
> > > and 'topic' is not the current branch. You may want to add a test
> > > that ensures that rebase sets LAST_HEAD in this case.
> > >
> > > You must make sure that commits referenced by LAST_HEAD are not
> > > garbage-collected. (I don't know if this happens anyway for symrefs
> > > in .git.)
> >
> > Note: if you used reflogs for that feature, the garbage collection
> > could not have killed the commit.  However, it is quite possible that
> > the branch was deleted.
> 
> I also like this feature, but as this is only a _convenience_ feature, I 
> would prefer if it didn't keep the previous branch/commit alive (if 
> otherwise unreachable).

> In any case, this new feature will _have_ to handle the case where there 
> simply is no previous branch/commit (e.g. after a git clone or git 
> init).
>
> I suggest that "git checkout -" looks at the reflog, and if there is no 
> previous entry in the reflog, or that entry is unreachable, then fail 
> in the same manner as "git checkout garbage"