Try this: Create a git-bundle like this:
git bundle create trash1.bundle some_branch^^..some_branch
Then try to fetch right back into the same git repo, but into a separate branch like this:
git fetch ./trash1.bundle some_branch:some_branch.1
See it fail like this:
fatal: './trash.bundle' does not appear to be a git repository
But move it into /tmp/trash1.bundle, and run it like this:
git fetch /tmp/trash1.bundle some_branch:some_branch.1
And it proceeds without issue, creating the some_branch.1 branch (which just so happens to point to the same commit as some_branch, as expected, since it is the same repo.
So why would git-fetch disallow specifyinf a bundle using standard file syntax of "./" in front? Why does the bundle file have to be fully-qualified?