# I want to report a bug/anomaly in Git 2 messages from 2011-01-11 to 2011-01-12. Participants: Tony Sales, Jeff King. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/26263 ## Tony Sales, 2011-01-11 22:22 Subject: I want to report a bug/anomaly in Git Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTimt%2BU3oo4FaywUr86ArG8d29yWAeVYhpRkBYa_K%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hi, how do I report a bug/anomaly in git? I have looked on the git website and tried to ask on the git irc on freenode but couldn't post, even after requesting a 'voice'. The bug is that if you happen to create a new remote branch which shares it's name with an existing directory in the top level of the git repository, git then seems to get confused and the: git checkout - command doesn't switch to that branch or turn tracking on (and seems to think it was created from origin/ rather than from refs/remotes/origin/), which it does if the branch doesn't share a name with an existing top level directory. This can be rectified by running: git checkout --track -b debian origin/debian - but this confused me for several hours and it was only because I had another repository with the same branch names, but different top level directories where the command worked that it finally dawned on me what the problem was. I then deleted the branch and created a new one with a differnt name and everything worked as expected. -- drbongo Dig that crazy beat on the drums: The best is getting better! ``` ## Jeff King, 2011-01-12 18:35 Subject: Re: I want to report a bug/anomaly in Git Message-ID: <20110112183556.GD31747@sigill.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20110112183556.GD31747%40sigill.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: ``` On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:22:29PM +0000, Tony Sales wrote: > The bug is that if you happen to create a new remote branch which > shares it's name with an existing directory in the top level of the > git repository, git then seems to get confused and the: git checkout > - command doesn't switch to that branch or turn tracking on > (and seems to think it was created from origin/ rather than > from refs/remotes/origin/), which it does if the branch > doesn't share a name with an existing top level directory. This can be > rectified by running: git checkout --track -b debian origin/debian I don't think this is a bug so much as a confusing application of too much DWIMmery in git-checkout. "git checkout foo" can mean several things: 1. If it's a branch name, then switch to that branch. 2. Otherwise, if it's a tag name, switch to a detached HEAD at that tag. 3. Otherwise, if it's a file known to git, then checkout its content in the index into the working tree. 4. Otherwise, if there is a remote branch that matches refs/remotes/*/foo, create a new branch "foo" that tracks it. So the problem is that you expect behavior (4), but behavior (3) is getting in the way. I assume it was written this way because (4) came much later, and therefore came last so as not to break existing behavior for the other cases. Conceptually, though, I think it makes more sense for it to come (3) (i.e., to keep all of the "checking out a ref" behavior together). And one can disambiguate the path-mode already by doing: git checkout -- debian -Peff ```