Documentation / git-show-ref.txton commit Tidy up git mergetool's backup file behaviour (44c36d1)
   1git-show-ref(1)
   2===============
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-show-ref - List references in a local repository
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10[verse]
  11'git-show-ref' [-q|--quiet] [--verify] [-h|--head] [-d|--dereference]
  12             [-s|--hash] [--abbrev] [--tags] [--heads] [--] <pattern>...
  13'git-show-ref' --exclude-existing[=pattern]
  14
  15DESCRIPTION
  16-----------
  17
  18Displays references available in a local repository along with the associated
  19commit IDs. Results can be filtered using a pattern and tags can be
  20dereferenced into object IDs. Additionally, it can be used to test whether a
  21particular ref exists.
  22
  23The --exclude-existing form is a filter that does the inverse, it shows the
  24refs from stdin that don't exist in the local repository.
  25
  26Use of this utility is encouraged in favor of directly accessing files under
  27in the `.git` directory.
  28
  29OPTIONS
  30-------
  31
  32-h, --head::
  33
  34        Show the HEAD reference.
  35
  36--tags, --heads::
  37
  38        Limit to only "refs/heads" and "refs/tags", respectively.  These
  39        options are not mutually exclusive; when given both, references stored
  40        in "refs/heads" and "refs/tags" are displayed.
  41
  42-d, --dereference::
  43
  44        Dereference tags into object IDs as well. They will be shown with "^{}"
  45        appended.
  46
  47-s, --hash::
  48
  49        Only show the SHA1 hash, not the reference name. When also using
  50        --dereference the dereferenced tag will still be shown after the SHA1.
  51
  52--verify::
  53
  54        Enable stricter reference checking by requiring an exact ref path.
  55        Aside from returning an error code of 1, it will also print an error
  56        message if '--quiet' was not specified.
  57
  58--abbrev, --abbrev=len::
  59
  60        Abbreviate the object name.  When using `--hash`, you do
  61        not have to say `--hash --abbrev`; `--hash=len` would do.
  62
  63-q, --quiet::
  64
  65        Do not print any results to stdout. When combined with '--verify' this
  66        can be used to silently check if a reference exists.
  67
  68--exclude-existing, --exclude-existing=pattern::
  69
  70        Make git-show-ref act as a filter that reads refs from stdin of the
  71        form "^(?:<anything>\s)?<refname>(?:\^\{\})?$" and performs the
  72        following actions on each:
  73        (1) strip "^{}" at the end of line if any;
  74        (2) ignore if pattern is provided and does not head-match refname;
  75        (3) warn if refname is not a well-formed refname and skip;
  76        (4) ignore if refname is a ref that exists in the local repository;
  77        (5) otherwise output the line.
  78
  79
  80<pattern>::
  81
  82        Show references matching one or more patterns.
  83
  84OUTPUT
  85------
  86
  87The output is in the format: '<SHA-1 ID>' '<space>' '<reference name>'.
  88
  89-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  90$ git show-ref --head --dereference
  91832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 HEAD
  92832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/master
  93832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/origin
  943521017556c5de4159da4615a39fa4d5d2c279b5 refs/tags/v0.99.9c
  956ddc0964034342519a87fe013781abf31c6db6ad refs/tags/v0.99.9c^{}
  96055e4ae3ae6eb344cbabf2a5256a49ea66040131 refs/tags/v1.0rc4
  97423325a2d24638ddcc82ce47be5e40be550f4507 refs/tags/v1.0rc4^{}
  98...
  99-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 100
 101When using --hash (and not --dereference) the output format is: '<SHA-1 ID>'
 102
 103-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 104$ git show-ref --heads --hash
 1052e3ba0114a1f52b47df29743d6915d056be13278
 106185008ae97960c8d551adcd9e23565194651b5d1
 10703adf42c988195b50e1a1935ba5fcbc39b2b029b
 108...
 109-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 110
 111EXAMPLE
 112-------
 113
 114To show all references called "master", whether tags or heads or anything
 115else, and regardless of how deep in the reference naming hierarchy they are,
 116use:
 117
 118-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 119        git show-ref master
 120-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 121
 122This will show "refs/heads/master" but also "refs/remote/other-repo/master",
 123if such references exists.
 124
 125When using the '--verify' flag, the command requires an exact path:
 126
 127-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 128        git show-ref --verify refs/heads/master
 129-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 130
 131will only match the exact branch called "master".
 132
 133If nothing matches, linkgit:git-show-ref[1] will return an error code of 1,
 134and in the case of verification, it will show an error message.
 135
 136For scripting, you can ask it to be quiet with the "--quiet" flag, which
 137allows you to do things like
 138
 139-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 140        git-show-ref --quiet --verify -- "refs/heads/$headname" ||
 141                echo "$headname is not a valid branch"
 142-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 143
 144to check whether a particular branch exists or not (notice how we don't
 145actually want to show any results, and we want to use the full refname for it
 146in order to not trigger the problem with ambiguous partial matches).
 147
 148To show only tags, or only proper branch heads, use "--tags" and/or "--heads"
 149respectively (using both means that it shows tags and heads, but not other
 150random references under the refs/ subdirectory).
 151
 152To do automatic tag object dereferencing, use the "-d" or "--dereference"
 153flag, so you can do
 154
 155-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 156        git show-ref --tags --dereference
 157-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 158
 159to get a listing of all tags together with what they dereference.
 160
 161SEE ALSO
 162--------
 163linkgit:git-ls-remote[1]
 164
 165AUTHORS
 166-------
 167Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>.
 168Man page by Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>.
 169
 170GIT
 171---
 172Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite