<branch> can be omitted in this syntax, and it's actually documented a
few paragraphs down:
You could omit <branch>, in which case the command degenerates to
"check out the current branch", which is a glorified no-op with
rather expensive side-effects to show only the tracking information,
if exists, for the current branch.
---
Documentation/git-checkout.txt | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
index 99c8c0dc0f..28817cfa41 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-checkout.txt
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ or the specified tree. If no paths are given, 'git checkout'
will
also update `HEAD` to set the specified branch as the current
branch.
-'git checkout' <branch>::
+'git checkout' [<branch>]::
To prepare for working on <branch>, switch to it by updating
the index and the files in the working tree, and by pointing
HEAD at the branch. Local modifications to the files in the
--
2.21.0.548.gd3c7d92dc2
