My `.git/config` can be corrupted if I try to get a local branch with an extremely long name to track a remote branch. Here is a (contrived) example to reproduce the issue: $ cd /tmp $ mkdir buggyrepo otherrepo $ cd buggyrepo/ && git init && cd - $ cd otherrepo/ && git init && cd - $ cd buggyrepo/ $ echo foo > MYFILE $ git add MYFILE && git commit -m "Initial" $ git remote add otherrepo ../otherrepo/ $ git checkout -b `ruby -e "puts 'a'*200"` $ git push -u otherrepo `ruby -e "puts 'a'*200"` fatal: bad config file line 11 in .git/config $ git status fatal: bad config file line 11 in .git/config Workaround available: Just delete the offending entry. I tested this with 1.7.12.2 --Ben Olive -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html