Re: [PATCH/RFC] builtin-checkout: suggest creating local branch when appropriate to do so

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Oct 5, 2009, 21:17 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0910052314580.4985@pacific.mpi-cbg.de>
In-Reply-To: <1254775583-49452-1-git-send-email-jaysoffian@gmail.com>

Hi,

On Mon, 5 Oct 2009, Jay Soffian wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> A user who has just cloned a remote repository and wishes to then work on a
> branch other than master may not realize they first need to create the local
> branch. e.g.:
> 
> $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git
> $ cd git
> $ git checkout next
> error: pathspec 'next' did not match any file(s) known to git.
> 
> This commit teaches git to make a suggestion to the user:
> 
> $ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git
> $ cd git
> $ git checkout next
> error: pathspec 'next' did not match any file(s) known to git.
> To create a local branch from the same named remote branch, use
>   git checkout -b next origin/next
> 
> Motivated by http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/129528

Actually, we should really think long and hard why we should not automatically check out the local branch "next" in that case. I mean, really long and hard, and making sure to take user-friendliness into account at least as much as simplicity of implementation.

Ciao, Dscho