Git for Windows changes commit message?

Question

After doing

git commit -am '/logs whatever'

I end up with commit message C:/Program Files/Git/logs whatever . How does this happen? I did not succeed in finding any related information by googling things like 'git commit message autocomplete'.

$ git --version
git version 2.20.1.windows.1

$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.4.23(1)-release (x86_64-pc-msys)

Additional investigation The path does not have to exist, it's just appended to C:/Program Files/Git , but if it exists, things can be different (notice /usr/ , both paths exist):

$ git commit -am '/bin/git.exe something'
[master 22f9915] C:/Program Files/Git/usr/bin/git.exe something

Answer 1

Apparently, this is a known issue . Johannes Schindelin, maintainer of Git for Windows, describes it and possible fixes:

If you specify command-line options starting with a slash, POSIX-to-Windows path conversion will kick in converting eg " /usr/bin/bash.exe " to " C:\\Program Files\\Git\\usr\\bin\\bash.exe ". When that is not desired -- eg " --upload-pack=/opt/git/bin/git-upload-pack " or " -L/regex/ " -- you need to set the environment variable MSYS_NO_PATHCONV temporarily, like so:

MSYS_NO_PATHCONV=1 git blame -L/pathconv/ msys2_path_conv.cc

Alternatively, you can double the first slash to avoid POSIX-to-Windows path conversion.

Even though in your case this is not a path as such, just the fact that the message starts with a slash must be triggering this behavior.