branch: make create_branch accept a merge base rev

When we ran something like

    $ git checkout -b test master...

it would fail with the message

    fatal: Not a valid object name: 'master...'.

This was caused by the call to `create_branch` where `start_name` is
expected to be a valid rev. However, git-checkout allows the branch to
be a valid _merge base_ rev (i.e. with a "...") so it was possible for
an invalid rev to be passed in.

Make `create_branch` accept a merge base rev so that this case does not
error out.

As a side-effect, teach git-branch how to handle merge base revs as
well.

Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Signed-off-by: Denton Liu <liu.denton@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 5 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/git-branch.txt b/Documentation/git-branch.txt
index 3bd83a7cbd..8719e4cab9 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-branch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-branch.txt
@@ -45,7 +45,11 @@ argument is missing it defaults to `HEAD` (i.e. the tip of the current
 branch).
 
 The command's second form creates a new branch head named <branchname>
-which points to the current `HEAD`, or <start-point> if given.
+which points to the current `HEAD`, or <start-point> if given. As a
+special case, for <start-point>, you may use `"A...B"` as a shortcut for
+the merge base of `A` and `B` if there is exactly one merge base. You
+can leave out at most one of `A` and `B`, in which case it defaults to
+`HEAD`.
 
 Note that this will create the new branch, but it will not switch the
 working tree to it; use "git checkout <newbranch>" to switch to the