"Avery Pennarun" [off-list ref] writes:
quoted
* You say "git checkout -- file" when you want to "check out the file
from the index";
The real question here is the --. Is it strictly needed? It's
optional in things like git-diff, which just do their best to guess
what you mean if you don't use the --.
No, I wrote -- only for clarity, because you can happen to have a branch
whose name is the same as the file. Otherwise you can safely omit it,
just like git-diff and any other commands that follow the -- convention.
I have a work tree that has an untracked file HEAD and master just to
catch script breakages that forgets to place -- in appropriate places when
they deal with user supplied pathnames.