Re: $> git branch splat response considered harmful

From: SZEDER Gábor <szeder.dev@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 8, 2019, 21:30 UTC
Message-ID: <20190808213002.GI20404@szeder.dev>
In-Reply-To: <CAJfuBxx5R28cjUj1v+mB4J+uUpbTMWnYowrCc=iOAbOcqWX-_w@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 08, 2019 at 03:08:06PM -0600, jim.cromie@gmail.com wrote:

Show 18 quoted lines

> fwiw,
> 
> jimc@frodo:~/prj-1/capnproto.git$ git branch -l
> * master
> 
> I find the splat in the response unhelpful
> when wrapped in shell for loop, the splat expands into everything in
> current directory
> 
> jimc@frodo:~/prj-1/capnproto.git$ for b in `git branch -l`; do echo $b; done
> appveyor.yml
> c++
> CMakeLists.txt
> CONTRIBUTORS
> ...
> 
> it would be nice if some flag combo would suppress that splat.
> save me from fugly brittle sh $IFS fiddlery and incomplete workarounds

'git branch' is not intended for scripting, try 'git for-each-ref' instead. The equivalent command should be:

  git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:strip=2)' refs/heads/

> also, I found no mention of the splat in the man page.

It's in the first sentence of the description :)

  If --list is given, or if there are no non-option arguments, existing
  branches are listed; the current branch will be highlighted in green
  and marked with an asterisk.