Subject: Re: BUG or FEATURE? Use of '/' in branch names

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 15:16:17 -0700

Hi Keith,

Keith Derrick wrote:

>     $ git checkout -b hotfix
>     Switched to a new branch 'hotfix'
>     $ git checkout -b hotfix/b2
>     error: unable to resolve reference refs/heads/hotfix/b2: Not a directory
>     fatal: Failed to lock ref for update: Not a directory
>     $

That's an ugly message.  I think we can do better. (hint hint)

Longer term, I think people would like to make it possible for a
'hotfix' and 'hotfix/b2' branch to coexist, but that will take some
work, and until then, git tries to be careful about enforcing the
constraint that they cannot coexist.

Fixing it would be complicated by the need to avoid breaking people
with older versions of git when they fetch from you (what happens to
the origin/hotfix and origin/hotfix/b2 remote-tracking refs on the
client side?).

Thanks and hope that helps,
Jonathan