Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt

   1 git-symbolic-ref(1)
   2 ===================
   3
   4 NAME
   5 ----
   6 git-symbolic-ref - Read and modify symbolic refs
   7
   8 SYNOPSIS
   9 --------
  10 [verse]
  11 'git symbolic-ref' [-m <reason>] <name> <ref>
  12 'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [--short] <name>
  13
  14 DESCRIPTION
  15 -----------
  16 Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic
  17 ref refers to and outputs its path, relative to the `.git/`
  18 directory.  Typically you would give `HEAD` as the <name>
  19 argument to see which branch your working tree is on.
  20
  21 Given two arguments, creates or updates a symbolic ref <name> to
  22 point at the given branch <ref>.
  23
  24 A symbolic ref is a regular file that stores a string that
  25 begins with `ref: refs/`.  For example, your `.git/HEAD` is
  26 a regular file whose contents is `ref: refs/heads/master`.
  27
  28 OPTIONS
  29 -------
  30
  31 -q::
  32 --quiet::
  33         Do not issue an error message if the <name> is not a
  34         symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit with
  35         non-zero status silently.
  36
  37 --short::
  38         When showing the value of <name> as a symbolic ref, try to shorten the
  39         value, e.g. from `refs/heads/master` to `master`.
  40
  41 -m::
  42         Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>.  This is valid only
  43         when creating or updating a symbolic ref.
  44
  45 NOTES
  46 -----
  47 In the past, `.git/HEAD` was a symbolic link pointing at
  48 `refs/heads/master`.  When we wanted to switch to another branch,
  49 we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we wanted
  50 to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`.
  51 But symbolic links are not entirely portable, so they are now
  52 deprecated and symbolic refs (as described above) are used by
  53 default.
  54
  55 'git symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 if the contents of the
  56 symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested
  57 name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs.
  58
  59 GIT
  60 ---
  61 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite