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>]
13
15 Displays references available in a local repository along with the
16 associated commit IDs. Results can be filtered using a pattern and tags
17 can be dereferenced into object IDs. Additionally, it can be used to
18 test whether a particular ref exists.
19 By default, shows the tags, heads, and remote refs.
21 The --exclude-existing form is a filter that does the inverse. It reads
23 refs from stdin, one ref per line, and shows those that don’t exist in
24 the local repository.
25 Use of this utility is encouraged in favor of directly accessing files
27 under the .git directory.
28
30 --head
31 Show the HEAD reference, even if it would normally be filtered out.
32 --heads, --tags
34 Limit to "refs/heads" and "refs/tags", respectively. These options
35 are not mutually exclusive; when given both, references stored in
36 "refs/heads" and "refs/tags" are displayed.
37 -d, --dereference
39 Dereference tags into object IDs as well. They will be shown with
40 "^{}" appended.
41 -s, --hash[=<n>]
43 Only show the SHA-1 hash, not the reference name. When combined
44 with --dereference the dereferenced tag will still be shown after
45 the SHA-1.
46 --verify
48 Enable stricter reference checking by requiring an exact ref path.
49 Aside from returning an error code of 1, it will also print an
50 error message if --quiet was not specified.
51 --abbrev[=<n>]
53 Abbreviate the object name. When using --hash, you do not have to
54 say --hash --abbrev; --hash=n would do.
55 -q, --quiet
57 Do not print any results to stdout. When combined with --verify
58 this can be used to silently check if a reference exists.
59 --exclude-existing[=<pattern>]
61 Make git show-ref act as a filter that reads refs from stdin of the
62 form "^(?:<anything>\s)?<refname>(?:\^{})?$" and performs the
63 following actions on each: (1) strip "^{}" at the end of line if
64 any; (2) ignore if pattern is provided and does not head-match
65 refname; (3) warn if refname is not a well-formed refname and skip;
66 (4) ignore if refname is a ref that exists in the local repository;
67 (5) otherwise output the line.
68 <pattern>...
70 Show references matching one or more patterns. Patterns are matched
71 from the end of the full name, and only complete parts are matched,
72 e.g. master matches refs/heads/master, refs/remotes/origin/master,
73 refs/tags/jedi/master but not refs/heads/mymaster or
74 refs/remotes/master/jedi.
75
77 The output is in the format: <SHA-1 ID> <space> <reference name>.
78 $ git show-ref --head --dereference
80 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 HEAD
81 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/master
82 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/origin
83 3521017556c5de4159da4615a39fa4d5d2c279b5 refs/tags/v0.99.9c
84 6ddc0964034342519a87fe013781abf31c6db6ad refs/tags/v0.99.9c^{}
85 055e4ae3ae6eb344cbabf2a5256a49ea66040131 refs/tags/v1.0rc4
86 423325a2d24638ddcc82ce47be5e40be550f4507 refs/tags/v1.0rc4^{}
87 ...
88 When using --hash (and not --dereference) the output format is: <SHA-1
90 ID>
91 $ git show-ref --heads --hash
93 2e3ba0114a1f52b47df29743d6915d056be13278
94 185008ae97960c8d551adcd9e23565194651b5d1
95 03adf42c988195b50e1a1935ba5fcbc39b2b029b
96 ...
97
99 To show all references called "master", whether tags or heads or
100 anything else, and regardless of how deep in the reference naming
101 hierarchy they are, use:
102 git show-ref master
104 This will show "refs/heads/master" but also
106 "refs/remote/other-repo/master", if such references exists.
107 When using the --verify flag, the command requires an exact path:
109 git show-ref --verify refs/heads/master
111 will only match the exact branch called "master".
113 If nothing matches, git show-ref will return an error code of 1, and in
115 the case of verification, it will show an error message.
116 For scripting, you can ask it to be quiet with the "--quiet" flag,
118 which allows you to do things like
119 git show-ref --quiet --verify -- "refs/heads/$headname" ||
121 echo "$headname is not a valid branch"
122 to check whether a particular branch exists or not (notice how we don’t
124 actually want to show any results, and we want to use the full refname
125 for it in order to not trigger the problem with ambiguous partial
126 matches).
127 To show only tags, or only proper branch heads, use "--tags" and/or
129 "--heads" respectively (using both means that it shows tags and heads,
130 but not other random references under the refs/ subdirectory).
131 To do automatic tag object dereferencing, use the "-d" or
133 "--dereference" flag, so you can do
134 git show-ref --tags --dereference
136 to get a listing of all tags together with what they dereference.
138
140 .git/refs/*, .git/packed-refs
141
143 git-for-each-ref(1), git-ls-remote(1), git-update-ref(1),
144 gitrepository-layout(5)
145
147 Part of the git(1) suite
148Git 2.39.1 2023-01-13 GIT-SHOW-REF(1)