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I'm trying to create a new repository in Github, and I'm having trouble with it's name. It's a C++ project, so I'd like to call it:


However Github creates me a repo with a url of:


which looks pretty bad.

Is this a constraint of Github or git itself?

I've played around with a few alternatives, but I'm not to keen on:

  • superprojectcpp
  • superprojectpp
  • superproject_cpp
  • superprojectplusplus

Any ideas?

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+1 - I actually laughed out loud at git's sense of humor ;) –  Kornel Kisielewicz Dec 20 '09 at 21:38
Would you be keen on superproject%2b%2b? :) –  Greg Hewgill Dec 20 '09 at 21:43
Perl modules have this problem, too. Foo::Bar becomes Foo--Bar. We usually use Foo-Bar now. At least they don't force lower case any more. How about super-project-action-force? –  Schwern Dec 21 '09 at 11:28
There was a recent patch in Git that fixed something about "+" in url, maybe Github hasn't taken it into account yet. –  alternative Aug 21 '10 at 17:27

1 Answer 1

The "plus" character often holds special meaning in URLs, and can't be used unencoded. For instance, spaces are sometimes encoded with a '+', rather than the more unfriendly '%20'. Assuming that git is doing this, you'll have to pick something else. Sorry.

(superprojectplusplus isn't so bad)

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I'm guessing it's not Git, but rather GitHub's server-side software, that is altering the name. –  mipadi Dec 21 '09 at 14:32
Yep, that seems likely, and what I meant to say. –  Michael Petrotta Dec 21 '09 at 19:43
I believe the newest version of git supports using + in url. There was a patch to fix gtk+'s repo. –  alternative Aug 21 '10 at 17:28
yeah +'s in the URL isn't really a great idea IMO. –  David Feb 24 '12 at 6:39

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