From: Anatol Rudolph Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:12:54 GMT Subject: git branch command is incompatible with bash Message-ID: <20150727121253.GC17338@2vizcon.com> Hello! I hope posting this to this mailing list is okay, this is the first ever mail that I submit to a technical mailing list. When using the git branch command, git uses a '*' to denote the current branch. Therefore, in bash this: $ branchName=$(git branch -q) $ echo $branchName produces a directory listing, because the '*' is interpreded by the shell. While an (unwieldly) workaround exists: $ branchName=$(git symbolic-ref -q HEAD) $ branchName=${branch##refs/heads/} it would still be nice, if there were a --current flag, that returned only the current branch name, omitting the star: $ branchName=$(git branch --current -q) $ echo $branchName master