Can @{-N} always be used where a branch name is expected?

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I was recently digging to find if there is any special syntax accepted for <oldbranch> in "git branch -m <oldbranch> <newbranch>" other than the plain branch name. I discovered the @{-N} notation. I was trying to play around with it and found that it didn't work as guaranteed by the last sentence of the following paragraph in the "check-ref-format" documentation,


With the --branch option, it expands the “previous branch syntax” @{-n}. For example, @{-1} is a way to refer the last branch you were on. This option should be used by porcelains to accept this syntax anywhere a branch name is expected, so they can act as if you typed the
    branch name.


In particular the following case doesn't work,

git init test &&
cd test &&
echo "Hello" >file &&
git add file &&
git commit -m "Initial commit that will be checked out" &&
echo "Hello world" >file &&
git commit file -m "Second commit" &&
git checkout HEAD^ &&
git checkout - &&
git branch -m @{-1} initial-commit


It failed with an error,

error: refname refs/heads/d21e72600673c670b3ae803488d0cebfa949e4c3 not found
fatal: Branch rename failed


Then I digged into why it didn't work to discover that @{-N} just expands to a valid checkout and not a valid "branch name". So, the documentation guaranteeing that "@{-N} acts as if you typed the branch name" seems wrong. That makes me think that we should avoid misleading the user in the "check-ref-format" documentation.

So, should we update the 'check-ref-format' doc or am I missing something?

---
Kaartic



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