1git-symbolic-ref(1) 2=================== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-symbolic-ref - read and modify symbolic refs 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10'git-symbolic-ref' <name> [<ref>] 11 12DESCRIPTION 13----------- 14Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic 15ref refers to and outputs its path, relative to the `.git/` 16directory. Typically you would give `HEAD` as the <name> 17argument to see on which branch your working tree is on. 18 19Give two arguments, create or update a symbolic ref <name> to 20point at the given branch <ref>. 21 22Traditionally, `.git/HEAD` is a symlink pointing at 23`refs/heads/master`. When we want to switch to another branch, 24we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we want 25to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`. 26This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by 27default, but on platforms that do not have working symlinks, 28or that do not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit 29cumbersome. On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as 30advertised (horrors). 31 32A symbolic ref can be a regular file that stores a string that 33begins with `ref: refs/`. For example, your `.git/HEAD` *can* 34be a regular file whose contents is `ref: refs/heads/master`. 35This can be used on a filesystem that does not support symbolic 36links. Instead of doing `readlink .git/HEAD`, `git-symbolic-ref 37HEAD` can be used to find out which branch we are on. To point 38the HEAD to `newbranch`, instead of `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch 39.git/HEAD`, `git-symbolic-ref HEAD refs/heads/newbranch` can be 40used. 41 42Currently, .git/HEAD uses a regular file symbolic ref on Cygwin, 43and everywhere else it is implemented as a symlink. This can be 44changed at compilation time. 45 46Author 47------ 48Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> 49 50GIT 51--- 52Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite