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| author | Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca> | 2025-09-10 19:14:23 +0000 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> | 2025-09-10 14:32:03 -0700 |
| commit | 21a5f9442e3a9640c46d3bc28b41a7238bb4ee9c (patch) | |
| tree | 22fe8c3cbce6dbc70a443aaf9583cbb347dde86d | |
| parent | f814da676ae46aac5be0a98b99373a76dee6cedb (diff) | |
doc: git-checkout: clarify intro sentence
From user feedback: in the first paragraph, 5 users reported not
understanding the terms "pathspec" and 1 user reported not understanding
the term "HEAD". Of the users who said they didn't know what "pathspec"
means, 3 said they couldn't understand what the paragraph was trying to
communicate as a result.
One user also commented that "If no pathspec was given..." makes
`git checkout <branch>` sounds like a special edge case, instead of
being one of the most common ways to use this core Git command.
It looks like the goal of this paragraph is to communicate that `git
checkout` has two different modes: one where you switch branches and one
where you just update your working directory files/index. So say that
directly, and use more familiar language (including examples) to say it.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-checkout.adoc | 10 |
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-checkout.adoc b/Documentation/git-checkout.adoc index ff1cb29bc1..e0910bb59d 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-checkout.adoc +++ b/Documentation/git-checkout.adoc @@ -20,10 +20,12 @@ git checkout (-p|--patch) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...] DESCRIPTION ----------- -Updates files in the working tree to match the version in the index -or the specified tree. If no pathspec was given, `git checkout` will -also update `HEAD` to set the specified branch as the current -branch. + +`git checkout` has two main modes: + +1. **Switch branches**, with `git checkout <branch>` +2. **Restore a different version of a file**, for example with + `git checkout <commit> <filename>` or `git checkout <filename>` `git checkout [<branch>]`:: To prepare for working on _<branch>_, switch to it by updating |