6 git-symbolic-ref - Read and modify symbolic refs
10 'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [-m <reason>] <name> [<ref>]
14 Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic
15 ref refers to and outputs its path, relative to the `.git/`
16 directory. Typically you would give `HEAD` as the <name>
17 argument to see which branch your working tree is on.
19 Given two arguments, creates or updates a symbolic ref <name> to
20 point at the given branch <ref>.
22 A symbolic ref is a regular file that stores a string that
23 begins with `ref: refs/`. For example, your `.git/HEAD` is
24 a regular file whose contents is `ref: refs/heads/master`.
31 Do not issue an error message if the <name> is not a
32 symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit with
33 non-zero status silently.
36 Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>. This is valid only
37 when creating or updating a symbolic ref.
41 In the past, `.git/HEAD` was a symbolic link pointing at
42 `refs/heads/master`. When we wanted to switch to another branch,
43 we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we wanted
44 to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`.
45 This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by
46 default, but on platforms that do not have working symlinks,
47 or that do not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit
48 cumbersome. On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as
49 advertised (horrors). Therefore symbolic links are now deprecated
50 and symbolic refs are used by default.
52 'git symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 if the contents of the
53 symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested
54 name is not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs.
58 Written by Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
62 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite