1GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)               Git Manual               GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)
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NAME

6       git-for-each-ref - Output information on each ref
7

SYNOPSIS

9       git for-each-ref [--count=<count>] [--shell|--perl|--python|--tcl]
10                          [(--sort=<key>)...] [--format=<format>] [<pattern>...]
11                          [--points-at=<object>]
12                          (--merged[=<object>] | --no-merged[=<object>])
13                          [--contains[=<object>]] [--no-contains[=<object>]]
14
15

DESCRIPTION

17       Iterate over all refs that match <pattern> and show them according to
18       the given <format>, after sorting them according to the given set of
19       <key>. If <count> is given, stop after showing that many refs. The
20       interpolated values in <format> can optionally be quoted as string
21       literals in the specified host language allowing their direct
22       evaluation in that language.
23

OPTIONS

25       <pattern>...
26           If one or more patterns are given, only refs are shown that match
27           against at least one pattern, either using fnmatch(3) or literally,
28           in the latter case matching completely or from the beginning up to
29           a slash.
30
31       --count=<count>
32           By default the command shows all refs that match <pattern>. This
33           option makes it stop after showing that many refs.
34
35       --sort=<key>
36           A field name to sort on. Prefix - to sort in descending order of
37           the value. When unspecified, refname is used. You may use the
38           --sort=<key> option multiple times, in which case the last key
39           becomes the primary key.
40
41       --format=<format>
42           A string that interpolates %(fieldname) from a ref being shown and
43           the object it points at. If fieldname is prefixed with an asterisk
44           (*) and the ref points at a tag object, use the value for the field
45           in the object which the tag object refers to (instead of the field
46           in the tag object). When unspecified, <format> defaults to
47           %(objectname) SPC %(objecttype) TAB %(refname). It also
48           interpolates %% to %, and %xx where xx are hex digits interpolates
49           to character with hex code xx; for example %00 interpolates to \0
50           (NUL), %09 to \t (TAB) and %0a to \n (LF).
51
52       --color[=<when>]
53           Respect any colors specified in the --format option. The <when>
54           field must be one of always, never, or auto (if <when> is absent,
55           behave as if always was given).
56
57       --shell, --perl, --python, --tcl
58           If given, strings that substitute %(fieldname) placeholders are
59           quoted as string literals suitable for the specified host language.
60           This is meant to produce a scriptlet that can directly be `eval`ed.
61
62       --points-at=<object>
63           Only list refs which points at the given object.
64
65       --merged[=<object>]
66           Only list refs whose tips are reachable from the specified commit
67           (HEAD if not specified), incompatible with --no-merged.
68
69       --no-merged[=<object>]
70           Only list refs whose tips are not reachable from the specified
71           commit (HEAD if not specified), incompatible with --merged.
72
73       --contains[=<object>]
74           Only list refs which contain the specified commit (HEAD if not
75           specified).
76
77       --no-contains[=<object>]
78           Only list refs which don’t contain the specified commit (HEAD if
79           not specified).
80
81       --ignore-case
82           Sorting and filtering refs are case insensitive.
83

FIELD NAMES

85       Various values from structured fields in referenced objects can be used
86       to interpolate into the resulting output, or as sort keys.
87
88       For all objects, the following names can be used:
89
90       refname
91           The name of the ref (the part after $GIT_DIR/). For a non-ambiguous
92           short name of the ref append :short. The option
93           core.warnAmbiguousRefs is used to select the strict abbreviation
94           mode. If lstrip=<N> (rstrip=<N>) is appended, strips <N>
95           slash-separated path components from the front (back) of the
96           refname (e.g.  %(refname:lstrip=2) turns refs/tags/foo into foo and
97           %(refname:rstrip=2) turns refs/tags/foo into refs). If <N> is a
98           negative number, strip as many path components as necessary from
99           the specified end to leave -<N> path components (e.g.
100           %(refname:lstrip=-2) turns refs/tags/foo into tags/foo and
101           %(refname:rstrip=-1) turns refs/tags/foo into refs). When the ref
102           does not have enough components, the result becomes an empty string
103           if stripping with positive <N>, or it becomes the full refname if
104           stripping with negative <N>. Neither is an error.
105
106           strip can be used as a synonym to lstrip.
107
108       objecttype
109           The type of the object (blob, tree, commit, tag).
110
111       objectsize
112           The size of the object (the same as git cat-file -s reports).
113
114       objectname
115           The object name (aka SHA-1). For a non-ambiguous abbreviation of
116           the object name append :short. For an abbreviation of the object
117           name with desired length append :short=<length>, where the minimum
118           length is MINIMUM_ABBREV. The length may be exceeded to ensure
119           unique object names.
120
121       upstream
122           The name of a local ref which can be considered “upstream” from the
123           displayed ref. Respects :short, :lstrip and :rstrip in the same way
124           as refname above. Additionally respects :track to show "[ahead N,
125           behind M]" and :trackshort to show the terse version: ">" (ahead),
126           "<" (behind), "<>" (ahead and behind), or "=" (in sync).  :track
127           also prints "[gone]" whenever unknown upstream ref is encountered.
128           Append :track,nobracket to show tracking information without
129           brackets (i.e "ahead N, behind M").
130
131           For any remote-tracking branch %(upstream), %(upstream:remotename)
132           and %(upstream:remoteref) refer to the name of the remote and the
133           name of the tracked remote ref, respectively. In other words, the
134           remote-tracking branch can be updated explicitly and individually
135           by using the refspec %(upstream:remoteref):%(upstream) to fetch
136           from %(upstream:remotename).
137
138           Has no effect if the ref does not have tracking information
139           associated with it. All the options apart from nobracket are
140           mutually exclusive, but if used together the last option is
141           selected.
142
143       push
144           The name of a local ref which represents the @{push} location for
145           the displayed ref. Respects :short, :lstrip, :rstrip, :track,
146           :trackshort, :remotename, and :remoteref options as upstream does.
147           Produces an empty string if no @{push} ref is configured.
148
149       HEAD
150           * if HEAD matches current ref (the checked out branch), ' '
151           otherwise.
152
153       color
154           Change output color. Followed by :<colorname>, where color names
155           are described under Values in the "CONFIGURATION FILE" section of
156           git-config(1). For example, %(color:bold red).
157
158       align
159           Left-, middle-, or right-align the content between %(align:...) and
160           %(end). The "align:" is followed by width=<width> and
161           position=<position> in any order separated by a comma, where the
162           <position> is either left, right or middle, default being left and
163           <width> is the total length of the content with alignment. For
164           brevity, the "width=" and/or "position=" prefixes may be omitted,
165           and bare <width> and <position> used instead. For instance,
166           %(align:<width>,<position>). If the contents length is more than
167           the width then no alignment is performed. If used with --quote
168           everything in between %(align:...) and %(end) is quoted, but if
169           nested then only the topmost level performs quoting.
170
171       if
172           Used as %(if)...%(then)...%(end) or
173           %(if)...%(then)...%(else)...%(end). If there is an atom with value
174           or string literal after the %(if) then everything after the %(then)
175           is printed, else if the %(else) atom is used, then everything after
176           %(else) is printed. We ignore space when evaluating the string
177           before %(then), this is useful when we use the %(HEAD) atom which
178           prints either "*" or " " and we want to apply the if condition only
179           on the HEAD ref. Append ":equals=<string>" or ":notequals=<string>"
180           to compare the value between the %(if:...) and %(then) atoms with
181           the given string.
182
183       symref
184           The ref which the given symbolic ref refers to. If not a symbolic
185           ref, nothing is printed. Respects the :short, :lstrip and :rstrip
186           options in the same way as refname above.
187
188       In addition to the above, for commit and tag objects, the header field
189       names (tree, parent, object, type, and tag) can be used to specify the
190       value in the header field.
191
192       For commit and tag objects, the special creatordate and creator fields
193       will correspond to the appropriate date or name-email-date tuple from
194       the committer or tagger fields depending on the object type. These are
195       intended for working on a mix of annotated and lightweight tags.
196
197       Fields that have name-email-date tuple as its value (author, committer,
198       and tagger) can be suffixed with name, email, and date to extract the
199       named component.
200
201       The complete message in a commit and tag object is contents. Its first
202       line is contents:subject, where subject is the concatenation of all
203       lines of the commit message up to the first blank line. The next line
204       is contents:body, where body is all of the lines after the first blank
205       line. The optional GPG signature is contents:signature. The first N
206       lines of the message is obtained using contents:lines=N. Additionally,
207       the trailers as interpreted by git-interpret-trailers(1) are obtained
208       as trailers (or by using the historical alias contents:trailers).
209       Non-trailer lines from the trailer block can be omitted with
210       trailers:only. Whitespace-continuations can be removed from trailers so
211       that each trailer appears on a line by itself with its full content
212       with trailers:unfold. Both can be used together as
213       trailers:unfold,only.
214
215       For sorting purposes, fields with numeric values sort in numeric order
216       (objectsize, authordate, committerdate, creatordate, taggerdate). All
217       other fields are used to sort in their byte-value order.
218
219       There is also an option to sort by versions, this can be done by using
220       the fieldname version:refname or its alias v:refname.
221
222       In any case, a field name that refers to a field inapplicable to the
223       object referred by the ref does not cause an error. It returns an empty
224       string instead.
225
226       As a special case for the date-type fields, you may specify a format
227       for the date by adding : followed by date format name (see the values
228       the --date option to git-rev-list(1) takes).
229
230       Some atoms like %(align) and %(if) always require a matching %(end). We
231       call them "opening atoms" and sometimes denote them as %($open).
232
233       When a scripting language specific quoting is in effect, everything
234       between a top-level opening atom and its matching %(end) is evaluated
235       according to the semantics of the opening atom and only its result from
236       the top-level is quoted.
237

EXAMPLES

239       An example directly producing formatted text. Show the most recent 3
240       tagged commits:
241
242           #!/bin/sh
243
244           git for-each-ref --count=3 --sort='-*authordate' \
245           --format='From: %(*authorname) %(*authoremail)
246           Subject: %(*subject)
247           Date: %(*authordate)
248           Ref: %(*refname)
249
250           %(*body)
251           ' 'refs/tags'
252
253
254       A simple example showing the use of shell eval on the output,
255       demonstrating the use of --shell. List the prefixes of all heads:
256
257           #!/bin/sh
258
259           git for-each-ref --shell --format="ref=%(refname)" refs/heads | \
260           while read entry
261           do
262                   eval "$entry"
263                   echo `dirname $ref`
264           done
265
266
267       A bit more elaborate report on tags, demonstrating that the format may
268       be an entire script:
269
270           #!/bin/sh
271
272           fmt='
273                   r=%(refname)
274                   t=%(*objecttype)
275                   T=${r#refs/tags/}
276
277                   o=%(*objectname)
278                   n=%(*authorname)
279                   e=%(*authoremail)
280                   s=%(*subject)
281                   d=%(*authordate)
282                   b=%(*body)
283
284                   kind=Tag
285                   if test "z$t" = z
286                   then
287                           # could be a lightweight tag
288                           t=%(objecttype)
289                           kind="Lightweight tag"
290                           o=%(objectname)
291                           n=%(authorname)
292                           e=%(authoremail)
293                           s=%(subject)
294                           d=%(authordate)
295                           b=%(body)
296                   fi
297                   echo "$kind $T points at a $t object $o"
298                   if test "z$t" = zcommit
299                   then
300                           echo "The commit was authored by $n $e
301           at $d, and titled
302
303               $s
304
305           Its message reads as:
306           "
307                           echo "$b" | sed -e "s/^/    /"
308                           echo
309                   fi
310           '
311
312           eval=`git for-each-ref --shell --format="$fmt" \
313                   --sort='*objecttype' \
314                   --sort=-taggerdate \
315                   refs/tags`
316           eval "$eval"
317
318
319       An example to show the usage of %(if)...%(then)...%(else)...%(end).
320       This prefixes the current branch with a star.
321
322           git for-each-ref --format="%(if)%(HEAD)%(then)* %(else)  %(end)%(refname:short)" refs/heads/
323
324
325       An example to show the usage of %(if)...%(then)...%(end). This prints
326       the authorname, if present.
327
328           git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)%(if)%(authorname)%(then) Authored by: %(authorname)%(end)"
329
330

SEE ALSO

332       git-show-ref(1)
333

GIT

335       Part of the git(1) suite
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337
338
339Git 2.20.1                        12/15/2018               GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)
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