Re: Notation for current branch?

From: Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 29, 2016, 19:52 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+P7+xpz8UNt6bBgrJvsHdFE+MQ4J80K1ed+b41XH_CG6HYYTA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqy43f9wzh.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 12:49 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> What's wrong with simply using 'HEAD' for scripting?
>>
>> When you want to display the current branch to the user, e.g. when
>> scripting a shell prompt or similar use
>
> Wait.  Even if a hypothetical version of Git understood @@ as "the
> current branch", how would you use that notation, instead of HEAD,
> to decide what to "display the current branch to the user"?
>
> You obviously will not be doing
>
>         echo @@
>
> You would be doing something around "git symbolic-ref" at the very
> least, and wouldn't you be feeding HEAD to that symbolic-ref anyway
> while doing so?
>

Hmm. You are right, I mis-understood the original question. Use of "git symbolic-ref" seems like the right thing if you need to obtain the current branch name, and there's no reason to not just use HEAD there.

Thanks, Jake