Automagic `git checkout branchname` mysteriously fails

[Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff@gmail.com>]

In a (private) repo project I have, I recently tried (and failed) to do:

  git checkout v4.1-support

getting a "pathspec did not match any files known to git" error.

There's an origin/v4.1-support, there is no v4.1-support "local"
branch. Creating the tracking branch explicitly worked.

Other similar branches in existence upstream did work. Autocomplete
matched git's own behaviour for this; where git checkout foo woudn't
work, autocomplete would not offer a completion.

Why is this?

One theory I have not explored is that I have other remotes, and some
have a v4.1-support branch. If that's the case, the error message is
not very helpful, and could be improved.

git --version
2.7.4

DWIM in git is remarkably good, even addictive... when it works :-)

cheers,



m
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