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-rw-r--r--Documentation/git-checkout.txt17
1 files changed, 16 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
index 5aa69c0e1..be54a0299 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ git-checkout - Checkout a branch or paths to the working tree
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
-'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [[--track | --no-track] -b <new_branch> [-l]] [-m] [<branch>]
+'git checkout' [-q] [-f] [--track | --no-track] [-b <new_branch> [-l]] [-m] [<branch>]
'git checkout' [<tree-ish>] [--] <paths>...
DESCRIPTION
@@ -21,6 +21,10 @@ specified, <new_branch>. Using -b will cause <new_branch> to
be created; in this case you can use the --track or --no-track
options, which will be passed to `git branch`.
+As a convenience, --track will default to create a branch whose
+name is constructed from the specified branch name by stripping
+the first namespace level.
+
When <paths> are given, this command does *not* switch
branches. It updates the named paths in the working tree from
the index file (i.e. it runs `git checkout-index -f -u`), or
@@ -59,6 +63,17 @@ OPTIONS
'git-checkout' and 'git-branch' to always behave as if '--no-track' were
given. Set it to `always` if you want this behavior when the
start-point is either a local or remote branch.
++
+If no '-b' option was given, the name of the new branch will be
+derived from the remote branch, by attempting to guess the name
+of the branch on remote system. If "remotes/" or "refs/remotes/"
+are prefixed, it is stripped away, and then the part up to the
+next slash (which would be the nickname of the remote) is removed.
+This would tell us to use "hack" as the local branch when branching
+off of "origin/hack" (or "remotes/origin/hack", or even
+"refs/remotes/origin/hack"). If the given name has no slash, or the above
+guessing results in an empty name, the guessing is aborted. You can
+exlicitly give a name with '-b' in such a case.
--no-track::
Ignore the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable.