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From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox•com>
To: Kaartic Sivaraam <kaarticsivaraam91196@gmail•com>
Cc: git@vger•kernel.org
Subject: Re: "Branch exists" error while trying to rename a non-existing branch to an existing one
Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2017 11:57:55 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqqd1998mks.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1499624859.8552.9.camel@gmail.com> (Kaartic Sivaraam's message of "Sun, 09 Jul 2017 23:57:39 +0530")

Kaartic Sivaraam <kaarticsivaraam91196@gmail•com> writes:

> I recently got the following error message by change as a result of the
> command,
>
>     $ git branch -m no-branch master
>     fatal: A branch named 'master' already exists.
>
> Note: no-branch is an hypothetical branch that doesn't exist.
>
> Shouldn't I get a 'no-branch' doesn't exist before that?

This is borderline "meh" at least to me.  An argument against a
hypothetical version of Git that "fixes" your issue would be that no
matter what the source of renaming is, as long as 'master' exists,
"branch -m" shouldn't overwrite it, and it is a good thing to remind
the user that 'master' exists and the user meant to rename it to
something else.

Of course you can make the error message three-way, but I do not
think it is worth it.

  reply	other threads:[~2017-07-09 18:58 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-07-09 18:27 "Branch exists" error while trying to rename a non-existing branch to an existing one Kaartic Sivaraam
2017-07-09 18:57 ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2017-07-10 14:14   ` Kaartic Sivaraam

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