SYNOPSIS
--------
+[verse]
'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [-m <reason>] <name> [<ref>]
DESCRIPTION
Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic
ref refers to and outputs its path, relative to the `.git/`
directory. Typically you would give `HEAD` as the <name>
-argument to see on which branch your working tree is on.
+argument to see which branch your working tree is on.
-Give two arguments, create or update a symbolic ref <name> to
+Given two arguments, creates or updates a symbolic ref <name> to
point at the given branch <ref>.
A symbolic ref is a regular file that stores a string that
`refs/heads/master`. When we wanted to switch to another branch,
we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we wanted
to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`.
-This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by
-default, but on platforms that do not have working symlinks,
-or that do not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit
-cumbersome. On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as
-advertised (horrors). Therefore symbolic links are now deprecated
-and symbolic refs are used by default.
-
-'git-symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 if the contents of the
+But symbolic links are not entirely portable, so they are now
+deprecated and symbolic refs (as described above) are used by
+default.
+
+'git symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 if the contents of the
symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested
name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs.
-Author
-------
-Written by Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
-
GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite