threads / discuss / 51036

git has issues with international characters in branch names

Subject: git has issues with international characters in branch names

## tl;dr

3 messages between May 5, 2019 and May 6, 2019.

replies: 2people: 3as markdown or json

Ax Da· May 5, 2019, 10:27 UTC · lore
The documentation doesn't seem to be clear about which characters are allowed as branch names.
We have been using umlauts and apostrophes in our branch names, and both are having issues:
- apostrophe:
  git removes the apostrophes from the branch name when creating/pushing a branch.
  In our TFS server repository we're having the same branch name twice: Once with apostrophes,
  and once without. And I don't seem to be able to delete the one without apostrophes.
- umlauts:
  The umlauts are not correctly interpreted when SMB is used. "gemäss" becomes "gem<C3><A4>ss".
  (See images attached.)
brian m. carlson· May 5, 2019, 18:14 UTC · re: Ax Da · lore

Re: git has issues with international characters in branch names

On Sun, May 05, 2019 at 12:27:31PM +0200, Ax Da wrote:
Show 12 quoted lines
> The documentation doesn't seem to be clear about which characters are allowed as branch names.
> 
> We have been using umlauts and apostrophes in our branch names, and both are having issues:
> 
> - apostrophe:
>   git removes the apostrophes from the branch name when creating/pushing a branch.
>   In our TFS server repository we're having the same branch name twice: Once with apostrophes,
>   and once without. And I don't seem to be able to delete the one without apostrophes.
> 
> - umlauts:
>   The umlauts are not correctly interpreted when SMB is used. "gemäss" becomes "gem<C3><A4>ss".
>   (See images attached.)

I don't think Git itself has a problem with Unicode. I literally just the other day created a branch with a Unicode apostrophe and pushed it to GitHub successfully using macOS. It is possible that TFS doesn't like them; that depends on the hosting solution you use. If you're seeing problems with TFS, I'd reach out to Microsoft for assistance.

It looks also like the Git CMD interface isn't rendering them properly. I would try using Git Bash instead, and if that doesn't work, please report that to Git for Windows. The folks there will have a better idea about the portability issue that's occurring; I expect there's a wart there somewhere between UTF-8 and UTF-16. It may also be that SMB is not a good choice for sharing repositories if you require internationalization, or you may need to change the character set your SMB server uses.

You may also, depending on which version of Windows you are using, have better luck at the command line with Windows Subsystem for Linux.

-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204
Jacob Keller· May 6, 2019, 04:32 UTC · re: brian m. carlson · lore

Re: git has issues with international characters in branch names

On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 11:16 AM brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> wrote:

Show 29 quoted lines
>
> On Sun, May 05, 2019 at 12:27:31PM +0200, Ax Da wrote:
> > The documentation doesn't seem to be clear about which characters are allowed as branch names.
> >
> > We have been using umlauts and apostrophes in our branch names, and both are having issues:
> >
> > - apostrophe:
> >   git removes the apostrophes from the branch name when creating/pushing a branch.
> >   In our TFS server repository we're having the same branch name twice: Once with apostrophes,
> >   and once without. And I don't seem to be able to delete the one without apostrophes.
> >
> > - umlauts:
> >   The umlauts are not correctly interpreted when SMB is used. "gemäss" becomes "gem<C3><A4>ss".
> >   (See images attached.)
>
> I don't think Git itself has a problem with Unicode. I literally just
> the other day created a branch with a Unicode apostrophe and pushed it
> to GitHub successfully using macOS. It is possible that TFS doesn't like
> them; that depends on the hosting solution you use. If you're seeing
> problems with TFS, I'd reach out to Microsoft for assistance.
>
> It looks also like the Git CMD interface isn't rendering them properly.
> I would try using Git Bash instead, and if that doesn't work, please
> report that to Git for Windows. The folks there will have a better idea
> about the portability issue that's occurring; I expect there's a wart
> there somewhere between UTF-8 and UTF-16. It may also be that SMB is not
> a good choice for sharing repositories if you require
> internationalization, or you may need to change the character set your
> SMB server uses.

In my experience, the regular command prompt will have significant troubles displaying UTF-8 characters.

I had better luck in Git Bash, but I don't recall if I had to do something for it.

Thanks, Jake

Show 6 quoted lines
>
> You may also, depending on which version of Windows you are using, have
> better luck at the command line with Windows Subsystem for Linux.
> --
> brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
> OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

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