Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> writes:
>> Meaning "git checkout origin" would look at origin/HEAD and find the
>> remote-tracking branch it points at, and uses that name? I think
>> that does make quite a lot of sense. You are correct to point out
>> that not just "git checkout origin/HEAD", but "git checkout origin",
>> currently detaches the HEAD at that commit, if you have origin/HEAD
>> pointing at one of the remote-tracking branches.
>
> I'm not sure if it's a good idea to change "git checkout origin" here or
> not. It already does something useful. I was mostly suggesting that the
> other thing might _also_ be useful, but I'm not sure if it is wise to
> change the current behavior.
Well, "git checkout origin/HEAD" would also do something useful,
which happens to be identical to "git checkout origin", to detach
HEAD at the commit.
> I was thinking more like an explicit way to trigger the dwim-behavior,
> like:
>
> # same as "git checkout foo" magic that creates "foo", but we
> # have said explicitly both that we expect to make the new branch, and
> # also that we expect it to come from origin.
> git checkout --make-local origin/foo
By default I think --guess (formerly known as --dwim) is enabled, so
"git checkout foo" is "git checkout --guess foo", which is making
local 'foo' out of the uniquely found remote-tracking branch. This
new one is to reduce the "uniquely found" part from the magic and
let you be a bit more explicit, but not explicit enough to say "-t"
or "-b foo"? I am not sure if this is all that useful.
If this were a slightly different proposal, I would see the
convenience value in it, though. Currently what "--guess" does is:
If the name 'foo' given does not exist as a local branch,
and the name appears exactly once as a remote-tracking branch
from some remote (i.e. 'refs/remotes/origin/foo' exists, but
there is no other 'refs/remotes/*/foo'), create a local 'foo'
that builds on that remote-tracking branch and check it out.
What would happen if we tweaked the existing "--guess" behaviour
slightly?
"git checkout --guess origin/foo", even when there is a second
remote 'publish' that also has a remote-tracking branch for
its 'foo' (i.e. both 'refs/remotes/{origin,publish}/foo'
exists), can be used to disambiguate among these remotes with
'foo'. You'd get local 'foo' that builds on 'foo' from the
remote 'origin' and check it out.
> # similar, but because we are being explicit, we know it is reasonable
> # to dereference HEAD to find the actual branch name
> git checkout --make-local origin/HEAD
The user does not need "git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD"
if such a feature were available. "git checkout --some-option origin"
without having to say /HEAD may be a better UI, though.
And "checkout" being a Porcelain, and the DWIM feature that is
always on is subject to be improved for human use, I do not see why
that --some-option cannot be --guess. If I want to get the current
behaviour, I can explicitly say "git checkout --detach origin"
anyway, no?
> That seems orthogonal. Whether there is checkout magic or not, changing
> what origin/HEAD points to would be disruptive to selecting it as a
> tracking source, or doing diffs, or whatever. But that is why the
> proposal in that series was to make the behavior configurable, and
> default to "fill it in if missing" as the default, not "always update on
> fetch".
Ah, I totally forgot that the favoured variant was "fill in if
missing, but don't move once it is set". Yes, I think that is a
sensible default.
Thanks.
