1git-check-ref-format(1) 2======================= 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-check-ref-format - Ensures that a reference name is well formed 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10'git check-ref-format' <refname> 11 12DESCRIPTION 13----------- 14Checks if a given 'refname' is acceptable, and exits with a non-zero 15status if it is not. 16 17A reference is used in git to specify branches and tags. A 18branch head is stored under the `$GIT_DIR/refs/heads` directory, and 19a tag is stored under the `$GIT_DIR/refs/tags` directory. git 20imposes the following rules on how references are named: 21 22. They can include slash `/` for hierarchical (directory) 23 grouping, but no slash-separated component can begin with a 24 dot `.`. 25 26. They cannot have two consecutive dots `..` anywhere. 27 28. They cannot have ASCII control characters (i.e. bytes whose 29 values are lower than \040, or \177 `DEL`), space, tilde `~`, 30 caret `{caret}`, colon `:`, question-mark `?`, asterisk `*`, 31 or open bracket `[` anywhere. 32 33. They cannot end with a slash `/`. 34 35These rules make it easy for shell script based tools to parse 36reference names, pathname expansion by the shell when a reference name is used 37unquoted (by mistake), and also avoids ambiguities in certain 38reference name expressions (see linkgit:git-rev-parse[1]): 39 40. A double-dot `..` is often used as in `ref1..ref2`, and in some 41 contexts this notation means `{caret}ref1 ref2` (i.e. not in 42 `ref1` and in `ref2`). 43 44. A tilde `~` and caret `{caret}` are used to introduce the postfix 45 'nth parent' and 'peel onion' operation. 46 47. A colon `:` is used as in `srcref:dstref` to mean "use srcref\'s 48 value and store it in dstref" in fetch and push operations. 49 It may also be used to select a specific object such as with 50 'git-cat-file': "git cat-file blob v1.3.3:refs.c". 51 52 53GIT 54--- 55Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite