Junio C Hamano, Fri 2013-07-19 @ 09:48:06-0700: > But there is a very commonly accepted long tradition for "-" to mean > "read from the standard input", so we cannot reuse it to mean "the > branch I was previously on" for every command without first making > sure the command will never want to use "-" for the other common > purpose.
It may be worth noting that Bash (and probably other shells as well) allow you to type `cd -` to switch back to the previous working directory. I always (apparently mistakenly) assumed that `git checkout -` was deliberately designed to mirror that shortcut. I think the symmetry gives it some credibility, in any case. This alternative meaning for - is not totally without precedent. What would it mean to check out the standard input, anyway? I cannot see how that could ever make sense, unless `git checkout` gains some additional capaabilities that are unrelated to its current purpose. Maybe I am just being myopic, though.
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