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