title: Why is the dot imporant? What does it do? 'git checkout HEAD~3 .'
body: <p>In this post..</p>
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3380805/checkout-old-commit-and-make-it-a-new-commit">Checkout old commit and make it a new commit</a></p>
  <pre><code>git rm -r .
  git checkout HEAD~3 .
  git commit
  </code></pre>
  <p>I accidentally ran <code>git checkout HEAD~3</code> rather than <code>git checkout HEAD~3 .</code></p>
  <p>What problem will this cause me? What is the purpose of the dot? If it is a problem, how do I fix it?</p>