checkout: disambiguate dwim tracking branches and local files

When checkout dwim is added in [1], it is restricted to only dwim when
certain conditions are met and fall back to default checkout behavior
otherwise. It turns out falling back could be confusing. One of the
conditions to turn

    git checkout frotz

to

    git checkout -b frotz origin/frotz

is that frotz must not exist as a file. But when the user comes to
expect "git checkout frotz" to create the branch "frotz" and there
happens to be a file named "frotz", git's silently reverting "frotz"
file content is not helping. This is reported in Git mailing list [2]
and even used as an example of "Git is bad" elsewhere [3].

We normally try to do the right thing, but when there are multiple
"right things" to do, it's best to leave it to the user to decide.
Check this case, ask the user to to disambiguate:

- "git checkout -- foo" will check out path "foo"
- "git checkout foo --" will dwim and create branch "foo" [4]

For users who do not want dwim, use --no-guess. It's useless in this
particular case because "git checkout --no-guess foo --" will just
fail. But it could be used by scripts.

[1] 70c9ac2f19 (DWIM "git checkout frotz" to "git checkout -b frotz
    origin/frotz" - 2009-10-18)
[2] https://public-inbox.org/git/CACsJy8B2TVr1g+k+eSQ=pBEO3WN4_LtgLo9gpur8X7Z9GOFL_A@mail.gmail.com/
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18230655
[4] a047fafc78 (checkout: allow dwim for branch creation for "git
    checkout $branch --" - 2013-10-18)

Signed-off-by: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 13 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/builtin/checkout.c b/builtin/checkout.c
index acdafc6e4c..4744e8c0a7 100644
--- a/builtin/checkout.c
+++ b/builtin/checkout.c
@@ -1079,9 +1079,12 @@ static int parse_branchname_arg(int argc, const char **argv,
 		 */
 		int recover_with_dwim = dwim_new_local_branch_ok;
 
-		if (!has_dash_dash &&
-		    (check_filename(opts->prefix, arg) || !no_wildcard(arg)))
+		int could_be_checkout_paths = !has_dash_dash &&
+			check_filename(opts->prefix, arg);
+
+		if (!has_dash_dash && !no_wildcard(arg))
 			recover_with_dwim = 0;
+
 		/*
 		 * Accept "git checkout foo" and "git checkout foo --"
 		 * as candidates for dwim.
@@ -1094,6 +1097,10 @@ static int parse_branchname_arg(int argc, const char **argv,
 			const char *remote = unique_tracking_name(arg, rev,
 								  dwim_remotes_matched);
 			if (remote) {
+				if (could_be_checkout_paths)
+					die(_("'%s' could be both a local file and a tracking branch.\n"
+					      "Please use -- (and optionally --no-guess) to disambiguate"),
+					    arg);
 				*new_branch = arg;
 				arg = remote;
 				/* DWIMmed to create local branch, case (3).(b) */
@@ -1228,7 +1235,7 @@ int cmd_checkout(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	struct checkout_opts opts;
 	struct branch_info new_branch_info;
 	char *conflict_style = NULL;
-	int dwim_new_local_branch = 1;
+	int dwim_new_local_branch, no_dwim_new_local_branch = 0;
 	int dwim_remotes_matched = 0;
 	struct option options[] = {
 		OPT__QUIET(&opts.quiet, N_("suppress progress reporting")),
@@ -1258,8 +1265,8 @@ int cmd_checkout(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 		OPT_BOOL('p', "patch", &opts.patch_mode, N_("select hunks interactively")),
 		OPT_BOOL(0, "ignore-skip-worktree-bits", &opts.ignore_skipworktree,
 			 N_("do not limit pathspecs to sparse entries only")),
-		OPT_HIDDEN_BOOL(0, "guess", &dwim_new_local_branch,
-				N_("second guess 'git checkout <no-such-branch>'")),
+		OPT_BOOL(0, "no-guess", &no_dwim_new_local_branch,
+			 N_("do not second guess 'git checkout <no-such-branch>'")),
 		OPT_BOOL(0, "ignore-other-worktrees", &opts.ignore_other_worktrees,
 			 N_("do not check if another worktree is holding the given ref")),
 		{ OPTION_CALLBACK, 0, "recurse-submodules", NULL,
@@ -1282,6 +1289,7 @@ int cmd_checkout(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	argc = parse_options(argc, argv, prefix, options, checkout_usage,
 			     PARSE_OPT_KEEP_DASHDASH);
 
+	dwim_new_local_branch = !no_dwim_new_local_branch;
 	if (opts.show_progress < 0) {
 		if (opts.quiet)
 			opts.show_progress = 0;