Feature Request: add a --current option to git branch

John Jendro· Feb 23, 2011, 19:08 UTC · lore

Yes I know this can be done with sed & grep, but --current should be a standard thing for git branch to have.

-- 
-John Jendro

Jay Soffian· Feb 23, 2011, 19:32 UTC · re: John Jendro · lore

Re: Feature Request: add a --current option to git branch

On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 2:08 PM, John Jendro <tacliat@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes I know this can be done with sed & grep, but --current should be a
> standard thing for git branch to have.

I sense you're looking to get the name of the currently checked out branch, possibly for use in a script. In that case, you may want "git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD" or "git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name HEAD" depending upon what you're trying to do.

j.

Junio C Hamano· Feb 23, 2011, 19:47 UTC · re: Jay Soffian · lore

Re: Feature Request: add a --current option to git branch

Jay Soffian <jaysoffian@gmail.com> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 2:08 PM, John Jendro <tacliat@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Yes I know this can be done with sed & grep, but --current should be a
>> standard thing for git branch to have.
>
> I sense you're looking to get the name of the currently checked out
> branch, possibly for use in a script. In that case, you may want "git
> rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD" or "git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name
> HEAD" depending upon what you're trying to do.

And if you are not scripting, then the completion script we ship (it was originally done for use with bash but I was told that it also can be used with zsh) may help.

Note that the completion script shows how to do this properly---if you are indeed scripting, it may be a good idea to study it, but the gist of it is:

	if b=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2>/dev/null)
        then
		echo "You are on branch ${b#refs/heads/}"
	else
		echo "You are not on any branch"
	fi