Documentation / technical / api-ref-iteration.txton commit t3504: use test_commit (6f0e577)
   1ref iteration API
   2=================
   3
   4
   5Iteration of refs is done by using an iterate function which will call a
   6callback function for every ref. The callback function has this
   7signature:
   8
   9        int handle_one_ref(const char *refname, const struct object_id *oid,
  10                           int flags, void *cb_data);
  11
  12There are different kinds of iterate functions which all take a
  13callback of this type. The callback is then called for each found ref
  14until the callback returns nonzero. The returned value is then also
  15returned by the iterate function.
  16
  17Iteration functions
  18-------------------
  19
  20* `head_ref()` just iterates the head ref.
  21
  22* `for_each_ref()` iterates all refs.
  23
  24* `for_each_ref_in()` iterates all refs which have a defined prefix and
  25  strips that prefix from the passed variable refname.
  26
  27* `for_each_tag_ref()`, `for_each_branch_ref()`, `for_each_remote_ref()`,
  28  `for_each_replace_ref()` iterate refs from the respective area.
  29
  30* `for_each_glob_ref()` iterates all refs that match the specified glob
  31  pattern.
  32
  33* `for_each_glob_ref_in()` the previous and `for_each_ref_in()` combined.
  34
  35* `head_ref_submodule()`, `for_each_ref_submodule()`,
  36  `for_each_ref_in_submodule()`, `for_each_tag_ref_submodule()`,
  37  `for_each_branch_ref_submodule()`, `for_each_remote_ref_submodule()`
  38  do the same as the functions described above but for a specified
  39  submodule.
  40
  41* `for_each_rawref()` can be used to learn about broken ref and symref.
  42
  43* `for_each_reflog()` iterates each reflog file.
  44
  45Submodules
  46----------
  47
  48If you want to iterate the refs of a submodule you first need to add the
  49submodules object database. You can do this by a code-snippet like
  50this:
  51
  52        const char *path = "path/to/submodule"
  53        if (add_submodule_odb(path))
  54                die("Error submodule '%s' not populated.", path);
  55
  56`add_submodule_odb()` will return zero on success. If you
  57do not do this you will get an error for each ref that it does not point
  58to a valid object.
  59
  60Note: As a side-effect of this you can not safely assume that all
  61objects you lookup are available in superproject. All submodule objects
  62will be available the same way as the superprojects objects.
  63
  64Example:
  65--------
  66
  67----
  68static int handle_remote_ref(const char *refname,
  69                const unsigned char *sha1, int flags, void *cb_data)
  70{
  71        struct strbuf *output = cb_data;
  72        strbuf_addf(output, "%s\n", refname);
  73        return 0;
  74}
  75
  76...
  77
  78        struct strbuf output = STRBUF_INIT;
  79        for_each_remote_ref(handle_remote_ref, &output);
  80        printf("%s", output.buf);
  81----