1GIT-SHOW-REF(1) Git Manual GIT-SHOW-REF(1)
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6 git-show-ref - List references in a local repository
7
9 git show-ref [-q|--quiet] [--verify] [--head] [-d|--dereference]
10 [-s|--hash[=<n>]] [--abbrev[=<n>]] [--tags]
11 [--heads] [--] [<pattern>...]
12 git show-ref --exclude-existing[=<pattern>] < ref-list
13
16 Displays references available in a local repository along with the
17 associated commit IDs. Results can be filtered using a pattern and tags
18 can be dereferenced into object IDs. Additionally, it can be used to
19 test whether a particular ref exists.
20 The --exclude-existing form is a filter that does the inverse, it shows
22 the refs from stdin that don’t exist in the local repository.
23 Use of this utility is encouraged in favor of directly accessing files
25 under the .git directory.
26
28 --head
29 Show the HEAD reference.
30 --tags, --heads
32 Limit to only "refs/heads" and "refs/tags", respectively. These
33 options are not mutually exclusive; when given both, references
34 stored in "refs/heads" and "refs/tags" are displayed.
35 -d, --dereference
37 Dereference tags into object IDs as well. They will be shown with
38 "^{}" appended.
39 -s, --hash[=<n>]
41 Only show the SHA1 hash, not the reference name. When combined with
42 --dereference the dereferenced tag will still be shown after the
43 SHA1.
44 --verify
46 Enable stricter reference checking by requiring an exact ref path.
47 Aside from returning an error code of 1, it will also print an
48 error message if --quiet was not specified.
49 --abbrev[=<n>]
51 Abbreviate the object name. When using --hash, you do not have to
52 say --hash --abbrev; --hash=n would do.
53 -q, --quiet
55 Do not print any results to stdout. When combined with --verify
56 this can be used to silently check if a reference exists.
57 --exclude-existing[=<pattern>]
59 Make git show-ref act as a filter that reads refs from stdin of the
60 form "(?:<anything>\s)?<refname>(?:\{})?$" and performs the
61 following actions on each: (1) strip "^{}" at the end of line if
62 any; (2) ignore if pattern is provided and does not head-match
63 refname; (3) warn if refname is not a well-formed refname and skip;
64 (4) ignore if refname is a ref that exists in the local repository;
65 (5) otherwise output the line.
66 <pattern>...
68 Show references matching one or more patterns.
69
71 The output is in the format: <SHA-1 ID> <space> <reference name>.
72 $ git show-ref --head --dereference
74 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 HEAD
75 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/master
76 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/origin
77 3521017556c5de4159da4615a39fa4d5d2c279b5 refs/tags/v0.99.9c
78 6ddc0964034342519a87fe013781abf31c6db6ad refs/tags/v0.99.9c^{}
79 055e4ae3ae6eb344cbabf2a5256a49ea66040131 refs/tags/v1.0rc4
80 423325a2d24638ddcc82ce47be5e40be550f4507 refs/tags/v1.0rc4^{}
81 ...
82 When using --hash (and not --dereference) the output format is: <SHA-1
85 ID>
86 $ git show-ref --heads --hash
88 2e3ba0114a1f52b47df29743d6915d056be13278
89 185008ae97960c8d551adcd9e23565194651b5d1
90 03adf42c988195b50e1a1935ba5fcbc39b2b029b
91 ...
92
95 To show all references called "master", whether tags or heads or
96 anything else, and regardless of how deep in the reference naming
97 hierarchy they are, use:
98 git show-ref master
100 This will show "refs/heads/master" but also
103 "refs/remote/other-repo/master", if such references exists.
104 When using the --verify flag, the command requires an exact path:
106 git show-ref --verify refs/heads/master
108 will only match the exact branch called "master".
111 If nothing matches, git show-ref will return an error code of 1, and in
113 the case of verification, it will show an error message.
114 For scripting, you can ask it to be quiet with the "--quiet" flag,
116 which allows you to do things like
117 git show-ref --quiet --verify -- "refs/heads/$headname" ||
119 echo "$headname is not a valid branch"
120 to check whether a particular branch exists or not (notice how we don’t
123 actually want to show any results, and we want to use the full refname
124 for it in order to not trigger the problem with ambiguous partial
125 matches).
126 To show only tags, or only proper branch heads, use "--tags" and/or
128 "--heads" respectively (using both means that it shows tags and heads,
129 but not other random references under the refs/ subdirectory).
130 To do automatic tag object dereferencing, use the "-d" or
132 "--dereference" flag, so you can do
133 git show-ref --tags --dereference
135 to get a listing of all tags together with what they dereference.
138
140 git-ls-remote(1)
141
143 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org[1]>. Man page by Jonas
144 Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk[2]>.
145
147 Part of the git(1) suite
148
150 1. torvalds@osdl.org
151 mailto:torvalds@osdl.org
152 2. fonseca@diku.dk
154 mailto:fonseca@diku.dk
155Git 1.7.1 08/16/2017 GIT-SHOW-REF(1)