Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> @@ -1269,6 +1270,16 @@ int cmd_checkout(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix) >> if (opts.patch_mode || opts.pathspec.nr) { >> int ret = checkout_paths(&opts, new_branch_info.name, >> &dwim_remotes_matched); >> + if (ret && dwim_remotes_matched > 1 && >> + advice_checkout_ambiguous_remote_branch_name) >> + advise(_("The argument '%s' matched more than one remote tracking branch.\n" >> + "We found %d remotes with a reference that matched. So we fell back\n" >> + "on trying to resolve the argument as a path, but failed there too!\n" >> + "\n" >> + "Perhaps you meant fully qualify the branch name? E.g. origin/<name>\n" >> + "instead of <name>?"), >> + argv[0], >> + dwim_remotes_matched); >> return ret; > > Do we give "checkout -p no-such-file" the above wall of text? > > Somehow checkout_paths(), which is "we were given a tree-ish and > pathspec and told to grab the matching paths out of it and stuff > them to the index and the working tree", is a wrong place to be > doing the "oh, what the caller thought was pathspec may turn out to > be a rev, so check that too for such a confused caller". Shouldn't > the caller be doing all that (which would mean we wan't need to pass > "remotes-matched" to the function, as the helper has nothing to do > with deciding which arg is the tree-ish). Well, upon closer inspection adding *dwim_remotes_matched parameter to checkout_paths() done in an earlier step seems to be totally bogus and only serves the purpose of confusing reviewers. The function does not touch the pointer in any way---it does not use the pointer to return its findings, and it does not use an earlier findings to affect its behaviour by dereferencing it. The dwim_remotes_matched is set by an earlier call to parse_branchname_arg(), which does gain an int* parameter in this series. And that addition _does_ make sense. That codepath is where the "do we have many remotes that could match, or none, or unique?" determination is made.