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Double Hyphens in Git Checkout

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While I was writing my previous post, I made a link to a Git cheatsheet. In the list, I saw a wrong command.

git checkout – <file>

It is incorrect to use an en-dash – in the above command, instead of a double hyphen --. I’ll illustrate this with an example below. Assume that the current file is ~/octopress.

$ cat >> Gemfile
bullshxt
$ git diff
diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index 4d028d3..a1718ff 100644
    --- a/Gemfile
    +++ b/Gemfile
@@ -20,3 +20,4 @@ group :development do
 end
 
 gem 'sinatra', '~> 1.4.2'
+bullshxt

...

$ git checkout — Gemfile
error: pathspec '—' did not match any file(s) known to git.

$ git checkout -- Gemfile  # correct command

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