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

6       git-check-ref-format - Make sure ref name is well formed
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SYNOPSIS

9       git-check-ref-format <refname>
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DESCRIPTION

12       Checks if a given refname is acceptable, and exits non-zero if it is
13       not.
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15       A reference is used in git to specify branches and tags. A branch head
16       is stored under $GIT_DIR/refs/heads directory, and a tag is stored
17       under $GIT_DIR/refs/tags directory. git imposes the following rules on
18       how refs are named:
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21        1.  It can include slash / for hierarchical (directory) grouping, but
22           no slash-separated component can begin with a dot .;
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24        2.  It cannot have two consecutive dots .. anywhere;
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26        3.  It cannot have ASCII control character (i.e. bytes whose values
27           are lower than \040, or \177 DEL), space, tilde ~, caret ^, colon
28           :, question-mark ?, asterisk *, or open bracket [ anywhere;
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30        4.  It cannot end with a slash /.
31       These rules makes it easy for shell script based tools to parse
32       refnames, pathname expansion by the shell when a refname is used
33       unquoted (by mistake), and also avoids ambiguities in certain refname
34       expressions (see git-rev-parse(1)). Namely:
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37        1.  double-dot .. are often used as in ref1..ref2, and in some context
38           this notation means ^ref1 ref2 (i.e. not in ref1 and in ref2).
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40        2.  tilde ~ and caret ^ are used to introduce postfix nth parent and
41           peel onion operation.
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43        3.  colon : is used as in srcref:dstref to mean "use srcref´s value
44           and store it in dstref" in fetch and push operations. It may also
45           be used to select a specific object such as with git-cat-file(1)
46           "git-cat-file blob v1.3.3:refs.c".
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GIT

49       Part of the git(7) suite
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54Git 1.5.3.3                       10/09/2007              GIT-CHECK-REF-FOR(1)
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