The SYNOPSIS section of the manual writes:
git checkout [options] [<tree-ish>] [--] <paths>...
but the DESCRIPTION says that this form checks the paths out "from the
index, or from a named commit." A later sentence refers to the same
argument as "<tree-ish> argument", but it is not clear that these two
sentences are talking about the same command line argument for first-time
readers.
Signed-off-by: Nanako Shiraishi <nanako3@lavabit.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
When <paths> are given, this command does *not* switch
branches. It updates the named paths in the working tree from
-the index file, or from a named commit. In
+the index file, or from a named <tree-ish> (most often a commit). In
this case, the `-b` options is meaningless and giving
either of them results in an error. <tree-ish> argument can be
used to specify a specific tree-ish (i.e. commit, tag or tree)