From: Matthieu Moy Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:09:04 GMT Subject: Re: "git checkout foo" is getting confused by folder named "foo" Message-ID: In-Reply-To: Jona Christopher Sahnwaldt writes: > On 25 September 2013 04:51, David Aguilar wrote: >> On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Jona Christopher Sahnwaldt >> wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> maybe this has already been reported, but I didn't find it in the mail archive. >>> >>> If I understand correctly, after I clone a repo, I should be able to >>> switch to branch foo just by running >>> >>> git checkout foo >>> >>> This doesn't seem to work if a folder called "foo" exists in the root >>> of the repo. >> >> git checkout foo -- > > Thanks for the suggestion, but it doesn't work for me. With both > 1.7.9.5 and 1.8.3.2, I get this: > > $ git checkout wiktionary -- > fatal: invalid reference: wiktionary OK, what happens is that "git checkout wiktionary" is actually a shorthand for "git checkout -b wiktionary --track origin/wiktionary". In other words, it does not only "checkout" the branch, but it creates a local branch with the right name, and checks it out. The -- disables this shorthand. I'd consider this as a bug. I've just sent a patch to try to fix this. > When I try the full branch name: > > $ git checkout origin/wiktionary -- > Note: checking out 'origin/wiktionary'. > You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can [...] This actually checks out the right commit, but does not create a local branch. That's not a very desirable solution. In short, this should do the trick: git checkout -b wiktionary --track origin/wiktionary -- Matthieu Moy http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/