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 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 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, --quiet:: 30 Do not issue an error message if the <name> is not a 31 symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit with 32 non-zero status silently. 33 34-m:: 35 Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>. This is valid only 36 when creating or updating a symbolic ref. 37 38NOTES 39----- 40In the past, `.git/HEAD` was a symbolic link pointing at 41`refs/heads/master`. When we wanted to switch to another branch, 42we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we wanted 43to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`. 44This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by 45default, but on platforms that do not have working symlinks, 46or that do not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit 47cumbersome. On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as 48advertised (horrors). Therefore symbolic links are now deprecated 49and symbolic refs are used by default. 50 51git-symbolic-ref will exit with status 0 if the contents of the 52symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested 53name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs. 54 55Author 56------ 57Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> 58 59GIT 60--- 61Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite