1git-symbolic-ref(1) 2=================== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-symbolic-ref - Read and modify symbolic refs 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [-m <reason>] <name> [<ref>] 12 13DESCRIPTION 14----------- 15Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic 16ref refers to and outputs its path, relative to the `.git/` 17directory. Typically you would give `HEAD` as the <name> 18argument to see which branch your working tree is on. 19 20Given two arguments, creates or updates a symbolic ref <name> to 21point at the given branch <ref>. 22 23A symbolic ref is a regular file that stores a string that 24begins with `ref: refs/`. For example, your `.git/HEAD` is 25a regular file whose contents is `ref: refs/heads/master`. 26 27OPTIONS 28------- 29 30-q:: 31--quiet:: 32 Do not issue an error message if the <name> is not a 33 symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit with 34 non-zero status silently. 35 36-m:: 37 Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>. This is valid only 38 when creating or updating a symbolic ref. 39 40NOTES 41----- 42In the past, `.git/HEAD` was a symbolic link pointing at 43`refs/heads/master`. When we wanted to switch to another branch, 44we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we wanted 45to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`. 46This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by 47default, but on platforms that do not have working symlinks, 48or that do not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit 49cumbersome. On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as 50advertised (horrors). Therefore symbolic links are now deprecated 51and symbolic refs are used by default. 52 53'git symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 if the contents of the 54symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested 55name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs. 56 57GIT 58--- 59Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite