Git checkout: “@{-N}” syntax

Question

I found this section in the git manpage, but it\'s kind of an obfuscated explaination:

As a special case, the \"@{-N}\" syntax for the N-th last branc

Answer 1

It's saying that if you do:

git checkout @{-1}

You'll check out the branch you were on before the current branch you have checked out. In addition, it checks it out by name, so you'll actually be on that branch, rather than just checking out that commit in a detached HEAD state. Similarly, you could use git checkout @{-2} to go back "two branch changes ago", and so forth.