Re: [PATCH v4] Introduce %<branch> as shortcut to the tracked branch

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 11:02:33AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

A naïve question.

Has nobody suggested to use a really illegal characters such as ':'
instead?  After all, we are not talking something that you can use in
refspecs but another way to spell branch names.

But if this goes into dwim_ref, then won't it be usable for refspecs? Or
even if it isn't, then imagine the user who doesn't know this and types

  git push :foo

unwittingly deleting the remote "foo".

Yes, that is unlikely (since why would they push the tracking branch of
foo?), but I don't think it makes sense to argue that it doesn't have
confusing (and potentially dangerous) consequenses.

Alternatively, '~master' may have a nice connotation that means "where
master calls its home".

I think that is quite clever and doesn't have any meaning for a revision
specifier already. I like it.

-Peff