# Re: git checkout - 3 messages from 2020-01-03 to 2020-01-04. Participants: Jonathan Nieder, Todd Zullinger, François WAUQUIER. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/52560 ## François WAUQUIER, 2020-01-03 12:40 Subject: Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAFS-fjvhAB5EcfHhfp6HYN57W11tkHOc8K8T3oey8qceutuYsg%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hi $ git checkout - I often use this command to go back to previous branch from my history. It is quite natural as it uses the same syntax as “cd -“ But i found out it is not documented in https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout/2.24.0 I report this to help others to discover this time saving command. Thanks for the great work with git Happy new year -- François Wauquier ``` ## Jonathan Nieder, 2020-01-04 00:48 Subject: Re: git checkout - Message-ID: <20200104004826.GC130883@google.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20200104004826.GC130883%40google.com In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, François WAUQUIER wrote: > $ git checkout - > > I often use this command to go back to previous branch from my history. > It is quite natural as it uses the same syntax as “cd -“ > > But i found out it is not documented in > https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout/2.24.0 > I report this to help others to discover this time saving command. Thanks for reporting! Ideas for what the documentation should say about it? (Bonus points if it comes in the form of a patch against Documentation/git-checkout.txt. ;-) See [1] for more about how that works.) Sincerely, Jonathan [1] https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/SubmittingPatches.html ``` ## Todd Zullinger, 2020-01-04 05:17 Subject: Re: git checkout - Message-ID: <20200104051741.GJ9927@pobox.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20200104051741.GJ9927%40pobox.com In-Reply-To: <20200104004826.GC130883@google.com> ``` Hi, Jonathan Nieder wrote: > Hi, > > François WAUQUIER wrote: > >> $ git checkout - >> >> I often use this command to go back to previous branch from my history. >> It is quite natural as it uses the same syntax as “cd -“ >> >> But i found out it is not documented in >> https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout/2.24.0 >> I report this to help others to discover this time saving command. > > Thanks for reporting! > > Ideas for what the documentation should say about it? (Bonus points > if it comes in the form of a patch against Documentation/git-checkout.txt. > ;-) See [1] for more about how that works.) Not to say that it can't possibly be improved, but it is mentioned in the git-checkout docs here[1]. The second paragraph in that section says: You can use the @{-N} syntax to refer to the N-th last branch/commit checked out using "git checkout" operation. You may also specify - which is synonymous to @{-1}. This is also in the git-switch documentation, where it might be easier to find, as it's very close to the beginning of git-switch's man page, in the "" entry of the OPTIONS section[2]. Being easy to miss in the git-checkout documentation might make Duy smile; it shows the benefit of splitting some of the many features of 'checkout' to the 'switch' command. :) [1] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout#Documentation/git-checkout.txt-ltbranchgt [2] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-switch#Documentation/git-switch.txt-ltstart-pointgt -- Todd ```