1git-symbolic-ref(1) 2=================== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-symbolic-ref - Read, modify and delete symbolic refs 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git symbolic-ref' [-m <reason>] <name> <ref> 12'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [--short] <name> 13'git symbolic-ref' --delete [-q] <name> 14 15DESCRIPTION 16----------- 17Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic 18ref refers to and outputs its path, relative to the `.git/` 19directory. Typically you would give `HEAD` as the <name> 20argument to see which branch your working tree is on. 21 22Given two arguments, creates or updates a symbolic ref <name> to 23point at the given branch <ref>. 24 25Given `--delete` and an additional argument, deletes the given 26symbolic ref. 27 28A symbolic ref is a regular file that stores a string that 29begins with `ref: refs/`. For example, your `.git/HEAD` is 30a regular file whose contents is `ref: refs/heads/master`. 31 32OPTIONS 33------- 34 35-d:: 36--delete:: 37 Delete the symbolic ref <name>. 38 39-q:: 40--quiet:: 41 Do not issue an error message if the <name> is not a 42 symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit with 43 non-zero status silently. 44 45--short:: 46 When showing the value of <name> as a symbolic ref, try to shorten the 47 value, e.g. from `refs/heads/master` to `master`. 48 49-m:: 50 Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>. This is valid only 51 when creating or updating a symbolic ref. 52 53NOTES 54----- 55In the past, `.git/HEAD` was a symbolic link pointing at 56`refs/heads/master`. When we wanted to switch to another branch, 57we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we wanted 58to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`. 59But symbolic links are not entirely portable, so they are now 60deprecated and symbolic refs (as described above) are used by 61default. 62 63'git symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 if the contents of the 64symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested 65name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs. 66 67GIT 68--- 69Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite