Git checkout multiple options issue

Hello,

Something like this:

git checkout -fb "branch_name" (force branch creation and checkout it)

doesn't work (even if option a separated).

I don't know if this is consider as an issue, but here it is.

Thanks for reading, Joris

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On January 28, 2019 8:25, COLLOMB Joris wrote:

I think you might mean (which works on every platform I have):

git checkout -f -b "branch_name"

There is no provision for aggregating options into one. -fb (invalid) is not the same as -f -b (valid).

Regards, Randall

-- Brief whoami:
 NonStop developer since approximately 211288444200000000
 UNIX developer since approximately 421664400
-- In my real life, I talk too much.

Thanks for answer,

git checkout -f -b "branch_name" gives me " Fatal: A branch named 'branch_name' already exists."

I understand that here the checkout is force, but not the branch creation. The opposite option order doesn't work:

git checkout -b -f "branch_name" gives me "Fatal: '-f' is not a valid branch name."

Once again sorry if this is expected behavior.

[For clarity, I'm trying to move a branch and checkout it with one command.]

Regards, Joris

-----Message d'origine----- De : Randall S. Becker <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> Envoyé : lundi 28 janvier 2019 15:12 À : COLLOMB Joris -EXT <joris.collomb-ext@alstomgroup.com>; git@vger.kernel.org Objet : RE: Git checkout multiple options issue

On January 28, 2019 8:25, COLLOMB Joris wrote:

I think you might mean (which works on every platform I have):

git checkout -f -b "branch_name"

There is no provision for aggregating options into one. -fb (invalid) is not the same as -f -b (valid).

Regards, Randall

-- Brief whoami:
 NonStop developer since approximately 211288444200000000  UNIX developer since approximately 421664400
-- In my real life, I talk too much.

________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY : This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may be privileged. If you are not a named recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to another person, use it for any purpose or store or copy the information in any medium.

On January 28, 2019 9:25, COLLOMB Joris wrote:

not the

Once the branch is created, you can't force its creation, because it is already created. Just

git checkout "branch_name"

is sufficient at this point. git is correct to complain that you are trying to create a branch that already exists.

git log --decorate --oneline --graph --all

will show you where your branch points in history at any given moment in time in a convenient form.

In this case, you are asking git to create a branch named -f (the -b branch option). Then "branch_name" becomes the reference that would be used to find the commit that -f would have pointed to. However, -f is not a valid name because it is an option and git is correct to reject it.

git checkout options are described here: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout

Regards, Randall

On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 10:20:02AM -0500, Randall S. Becker wrote:

git checkout -B exists, which does exactly that: force create a branch at a new positon if it already exists.

Kind regards, Kevin

Kevin Daudt <me@ikke.info> writes:

Correct.

"git checkout -b/-B" is for lazy people to perform two things, i.e. "creating a branch" and "checking the branch out", at the same time.

If we did not allow "git checkout -b newbranch othercommit" and only allowed "git checkout -b newbranch", i.e. to start a branch at the current HEAD, then we could make "git checkout -f -b newbranch" to mean "git checkout -B newbranch", because creating a branch at HEAD and checking it out will not have a risk of overwriting local changes, i.e. no need to force the "checking the branch out" part, so the "--force" option can only mean "force creating the branch".

But because the new branch can begin at the commit whose tree differs at a path that has local modifications, there needs a way to tell the command which part, either "creating a branch" or "checking the branch out", is being forced. Hence, "-f" tells the "checking out the branch" part to do the forcing (e.g. allowing local changes to be overwritten), and "creating a branch" part is told to force with the distinction between "-b" and "-B".

Sorry to not be agree, in the man page of git branch:

       -f, --force
           Reset <branchname> to <startpoint> if <branchname> exists already. Without -f git branch refuses to change an existing branch. In combination with -d (or --delete), allow
           deleting the branch irrespective of its merged status. In combination with -m (or --move), allow renaming the branch even if the new branch name already exists.

The behavior I was expecting with git checkout -b -f "branch_name" is a checkout on a forced branch creation at <startpoint>.

So the only solution for me is : git branch -f "branch_name" && git checkout "branch_name"

So to resume:
- This is not an issue, just a divergence between my logic and git implementation.
- The message "Fatal:  '-f' is not a valid branch name." is maybe not optimal, and it may better be " Fatal:  you trying to force the creation of a branch. Please do "git branch -f" if you know what you're doing"

I still don't know if you understand me, But I really appreciate that you take some time to answer me.

Regards, Joris

-----Message d'origine----- De : Randall S. Becker <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> Envoyé : lundi 28 janvier 2019 16:20 À : COLLOMB Joris -EXT <joris.collomb-ext@alstomgroup.com>; git@vger.kernel.org Objet : RE: Git checkout multiple options issue

On January 28, 2019 9:25, COLLOMB Joris wrote:

not the

Once the branch is created, you can't force its creation, because it is already created. Just

git checkout "branch_name"

is sufficient at this point. git is correct to complain that you are trying to create a branch that already exists.

git log --decorate --oneline --graph --all

will show you where your branch points in history at any given moment in time in a convenient form.

In this case, you are asking git to create a branch named -f (the -b branch option). Then "branch_name" becomes the reference that would be used to find the commit that -f would have pointed to. However, -f is not a valid name because it is an option and git is correct to reject it.

git checkout options are described here: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout

Regards, Randall

________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY : This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may be privileged. If you are not a named recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to another person, use it for any purpose or store or copy the information in any medium.

On January 28, 2019 11:03, COLLOMB Joris wrote:

A few things:

1. Please put your responses at the end, by convention, for this distribution list so that I don't have to reformat the message each time 😉
2. You cannot assume that a flag in one command is going to do the same thing in another command. -f in checkout means one thing. -f in branch means something different. It is dangerous to conflate the meaning of flags between commands.
3. git branch -f is used to force a branch move on a branch that you do not have checked out, so mixing these is semantically incorrect. git branch -f will deliberately fail if you try to use it on the branch that is checked out. This is correct behaviour.
4. git checkout -f means to do the checkout even if the HEAD and working index do not match and has nothing to do with branch creation. These are entirely different meanings and must not be "blended" into one concept.
5. Your expectation of the functionality is different from what git is providing.

git checkout -b name creates a branch. The -f flag, which deals with index vs. HEAD, really has no usefulness with what you are trying to do. Perhaps we should throw an error saying -f and -b make no sense when used together, but I suspect there is a subtle reason for keeping that capability. It is NOT what you are intending.

git checkout -b -f is a SYNTAX error on part of the operator error, and git is correct to issue a Fatal error message about it. At best, git checkout -b "branch" -f is correct, but not meaningful.

If you are trying to script a situation where git checkout will work regardless of whether the branch exists or not, use git show-ref. Then your script can use git checkout -b "branch" if the branch does not exist, and git checkout -f "branch" if it does. You might get unpredictable results using -f anyway in this case because of the mismatch above.