Re: Suggestion: better error message when an ambiguous checkout is executed

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Mahmoud Al-Qudsi [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

The default git behavior when attempting to `git checkout xxx` for
some value of "xxx" that cannot be resolved to a single, unique
file/path/branch/tag/commit/etc is to display the following:

...
So a possible implementation approach would be

 - to let the current code do what it is doing

 - except that you add new code immediately before the code that
   issues 'xxx' did not match (i.e. the code already checked that
   'xxx' taken as a pathspec does not match anything, and about to
   give the error message but hasn't done so just yet).

 - your new code 

   . checks if 'xxx' could be an attempt to refer to a rev but
     insufficiently spelled out (e.g. both origin[12]/xxx exists, or
     for a bonus point, a similarly named origin/xxy exists and
     could be a typo).

   . if the above check found something, then you report it and
     terminate without complaining "pathspec 'xxx' did not
     match..."

   . on the other hand, if the above check did not find anything,
     then you let the current code issue the same error message as
     before.

I was sweeping my mailbox to collect loose ends that haven't been
tied down, and noticed that this topic does not seem to have reached
a conclusion.  Do we want to reboot the effort?  Or should we just
throw it in the #leftoverbits bin for now?

Thanks.