Re: 'git branch' when origin branch with same name exists

Matthieu Moy [off-list ref] writes:

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Requiring starting point and failing without --force will never
happen, but it could be a possible approach to issue an additional
advice message under reasonably narrow conditions, namely:

 - The starting point was not given explicitly;

 - It would have DWIMed to "git checkout -t -b it origin/it" when
   creating the branch (I think you need to check configurations
   like branch.autosetupmerge and existence of the tracking branch
   remotes/origin/it); and

 - advice.branchNotTrackingCorrespondingRemote is not set to false.

I like that. Stg like

$ git branch next
Creating local branch next starting from <sha1>.
If you meant to checkout a new branch 'next' to track remote branch
'next' from 'origin', run these commands now:
git branch -d next; git checkout next

Oh, another precondition would be that --force was _not_ given.

It is fairly clear "git branch -f next" is asking to forcibly update
an existing local 'next' to the current HEAD, not to origin/next,
and giving the above suggestion will be mildly irritating in such a
case.