GIT-REV-PARSE(1) Git Manual GIT-REV-PARSE(1)
NAME
git-rev-parse - Pick out and massage parameters
SYNOPSIS
git rev-parse [ --option ] <args>...
DESCRIPTION
Many Git porcelainish commands take mixture of flags (i.e. parameters that begin with a dash -) and parameters
meant for the underlying git rev-list command they use internally and flags and parameters for the other
commands they use downstream of git rev-list. This command is used to distinguish between them.
OPTIONS
--parseopt
Use git rev-parse in option parsing mode (see PARSEOPT section below).
--keep-dashdash
Only meaningful in --parseopt mode. Tells the option parser to echo out the first -- met instead of
skipping it.
--stop-at-non-option
Only meaningful in --parseopt mode. Lets the option parser stop at the first non-option argument. This can
be used to parse sub-commands that take options themselves.
--sq-quote
Use git rev-parse in shell quoting mode (see SQ-QUOTE section below). In contrast to the --sq option
below, this mode does only quoting. Nothing else is done to command input.
--revs-only
Do not output flags and parameters not meant for git rev-list command.
--no-revs
Do not output flags and parameters meant for git rev-list command.
--flags
Do not output non-flag parameters.
--no-flags
Do not output flag parameters.
--default <arg>
If there is no parameter given by the user, use <arg> instead.
--verify
Verify that exactly one parameter is provided, and that it can be turned into a raw 20-byte SHA-1 that can
be used to access the object database. If so, emit it to the standard output; otherwise, error out.
If you want to make sure that the output actually names an object in your object database and/or can be
used as a specific type of object For example, git rev-parse "$VAR^{commit}" will make sure $VAR names an
existing object that is a commit-ish (i.e. a commit, or an annotated tag that points at a commit). To make
sure that $VAR names an existing object of any type, git rev-parse "$VAR^{object}" can be used.
-q, --quiet
Only meaningful in --verify mode. Do not output an error message if the first argument is not a valid
object name; instead exit with non-zero status silently.
in a form as close to the original input as possible.
--symbolic-full-name
This is similar to --symbolic, but it omits input that are not refs (i.e. branch or tag names; or more
explicitly disambiguating "heads/master" form, when you want to name the "master" branch when there is an
unfortunately named tag "master"), and show them as full refnames (e.g. "refs/heads/master").
--abbrev-ref[=(strict|loose)]
A non-ambiguous short name of the objects name. The option core.warnAmbiguousRefs is used to select the
strict abbreviation mode.
--disambiguate=<prefix>
Show every object whose name begins with the given prefix. The <prefix> must be at least 4 hexadecimal
digits long to avoid listing each and every object in the repository by mistake.
--all
Show all refs found in refs/.
--branches[=pattern], --tags[=pattern], --remotes[=pattern]
Show all branches, tags, or remote-tracking branches, respectively (i.e., refs found in refs/heads,
refs/tags, or refs/remotes, respectively).
If a pattern is given, only refs matching the given shell glob are shown. If the pattern does not contain
a globbing character (?, *, or [), it is turned into a prefix match by appending /*.
--glob=pattern
Show all refs matching the shell glob pattern pattern. If the pattern does not start with refs/, this is
automatically prepended. If the pattern does not contain a globbing character (?, *, or [), it is turned
into a prefix match by appending /*.
--show-toplevel
Show the absolute path of the top-level directory.
--show-prefix
When the command is invoked from a subdirectory, show the path of the current directory relative to the
top-level directory.
--show-cdup
When the command is invoked from a subdirectory, show the path of the top-level directory relative to the
current directory (typically a sequence of "../", or an empty string).
--git-dir
Show $GIT_DIR if defined. Otherwise show the path to the .git directory. The path shown, when relative, is
relative to the current working directory.
If $GIT_DIR is not defined and the current directory is not detected to lie in a Git repository or work
tree print a message to stderr and exit with nonzero status.
--is-inside-git-dir
When the current working directory is below the repository directory print "true", otherwise "false".
--is-inside-work-tree
When the current working directory is inside the work tree of the repository print "true", otherwise
"false".
--since=datestring, --after=datestring
Parse the date string, and output the corresponding --max-age= parameter for git rev-list.
--until=datestring, --before=datestring
Parse the date string, and output the corresponding --min-age= parameter for git rev-list.
<args>...
Flags and parameters to be parsed.
--resolve-git-dir <path>
Check if <path> is a valid repository or a gitfile that points at a valid repository, and print the
location of the repository. If <path> is a gitfile then the resolved path to the real repository is
printed.
SPECIFYING REVISIONS
A revision parameter <rev> typically, but not necessarily, names a commit object. It uses what is called an
extended SHA-1 syntax. Here are various ways to spell object names. The ones listed near the end of this list
name trees and blobs contained in a commit.
<sha1>, e.g. dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735, dae86e
The full SHA-1 object name (40-byte hexadecimal string), or a leading substring that is unique within the
repository. E.g. dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735 and dae86e both name the same commit object if
there is no other object in your repository whose object name starts with dae86e.
<describeOutput>, e.g. v1.7.4.2-679-g3bee7fb
Output from git describe; i.e. a closest tag, optionally followed by a dash and a number of commits,
followed by a dash, a g, and an abbreviated object name.
<refname>, e.g. master, heads/master, refs/heads/master
A symbolic ref name. E.g. master typically means the commit object referenced by refs/heads/master. If
you happen to have both heads/master and tags/master, you can explicitly say heads/master to tell Git
which one you mean. When ambiguous, a <refname> is disambiguated by taking the first match in the
following rules:
1. If $GIT_DIR/<refname> exists, that is what you mean (this is usually useful only for HEAD, FETCH_HEAD,
ORIG_HEAD, MERGE_HEAD and CHERRY_PICK_HEAD);
2. otherwise, refs/<refname> if it exists;
3. otherwise, refs/tags/<refname> if it exists;
4. otherwise, refs/heads/<refname> if it exists;
5. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname> if it exists;
6. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname>/HEAD if it exists.
HEAD names the commit on which you based the changes in the working tree. FETCH_HEAD records the
branch which you fetched from a remote repository with your last git fetch invocation. ORIG_HEAD is
created by commands that move your HEAD in a drastic way, to record the position of the HEAD before
their operation, so that you can easily change the tip of the branch back to the state before you ran
them. MERGE_HEAD records the commit(s) which you are merging into your branch when you run git merge.
CHERRY_PICK_HEAD records the commit which you are cherry-picking when you run git cherry-pick.
<refname>@{<n>}, e.g. master@{1}
A ref followed by the suffix @ with an ordinal specification enclosed in a brace pair (e.g. {1}, {15})
specifies the n-th prior value of that ref. For example master@{1} is the immediate prior value of master
while master@{5} is the 5th prior value of master. This suffix may only be used immediately following a
ref name and the ref must have an existing log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<refname>).
@{<n>}, e.g. @{1}
You can use the @ construct with an empty ref part to get at a reflog entry of the current branch. For
example, if you are on branch blabla then @{1} means the same as blabla@{1}.
@{-<n>}, e.g. @{-1}
The construct @{-<n>} means the <n>th branch checked out before the current one.
<branchname>@{upstream}, e.g. master@{upstream}, @{u}
The suffix @{upstream} to a branchname (short form <branchname>@{u}) refers to the branch that the branch
specified by branchname is set to build on top of. A missing branchname defaults to the current one.
<rev>^, e.g. HEAD^, v1.5.1^0
A suffix ^ to a revision parameter means the first parent of that commit object. ^<n> means the <n>th
parent (i.e. <rev>^ is equivalent to <rev>^1). As a special rule, <rev>^0 means the commit itself and is
used when <rev> is the object name of a tag object that refers to a commit object.
<rev>~<n>, e.g. master~3
A suffix ~<n> to a revision parameter means the commit object that is the <n>th generation ancestor of the
named commit object, following only the first parents. I.e. <rev>~3 is equivalent to <rev>^^^ which is
equivalent to <rev>^1^1^1. See below for an illustration of the usage of this form.
<rev>^{<type>}, e.g. v0.99.8^{commit}
A suffix ^ followed by an object type name enclosed in brace pair means the object could be a tag, and
dereference the tag recursively until an object of that type is found or the object cannot be dereferenced
anymore (in which case, barf). <rev>^0 is a short-hand for <rev>^{commit}.
rev^{object} can be used to make sure rev names an object that exists, without requiring rev to be a tag,
and without dereferencing rev; because a tag is already an object, it does not have to be dereferenced
even once to get to an object.
<rev>^{}, e.g. v0.99.8^{}
A suffix ^ followed by an empty brace pair means the object could be a tag, and dereference the tag
recursively until a non-tag object is found.
<rev>^{/<text>}, e.g. HEAD^{/fix nasty bug}
A suffix ^ to a revision parameter, followed by a brace pair that contains a text led by a slash, is the
same as the :/fix nasty bug syntax below except that it returns the youngest matching commit which is
reachable from the <rev> before ^.
:/<text>, e.g. :/fix nasty bug
A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a text, names a commit whose commit message matches the
specified regular expression. This name returns the youngest matching commit which is reachable from any
ref. If the commit message starts with a ! you have to repeat that; the special sequence :/!, followed by
something else than !, is reserved for now. The regular expression can match any part of the commit
message. To match messages starting with a string, one can use e.g. :/^foo.
<rev>:<path>, e.g. HEAD:README, :README, master:./README
A suffix : followed by a path names the blob or tree at the given path in the tree-ish object named by the
Here is an illustration, by Jon Loeliger. Both commit nodes B and C are parents of commit node A. Parent
commits are ordered left-to-right.
G H I J
\ / \ /
D E F
\ | / \
\ | / |
\|/ |
B C
\ /
\ /
A
A = = A^0
B = A^ = A^1 = A~1
C = A^2 = A^2
D = A^^ = A^1^1 = A~2
E = B^2 = A^^2
F = B^3 = A^^3
G = A^^^ = A^1^1^1 = A~3
H = D^2 = B^^2 = A^^^2 = A~2^2
I = F^ = B^3^ = A^^3^
J = F^2 = B^3^2 = A^^3^2
SPECIFYING RANGES
History traversing commands such as git log operate on a set of commits, not just a single commit. To these
commands, specifying a single revision with the notation described in the previous section means the set of
commits reachable from that commit, following the commit ancestry chain.
To exclude commits reachable from a commit, a prefix ^ notation is used. E.g. ^r1 r2 means commits reachable
from r2 but exclude the ones reachable from r1.
This set operation appears so often that there is a shorthand for it. When you have two commits r1 and r2
(named according to the syntax explained in SPECIFYING REVISIONS above), you can ask for commits that are
reachable from r2 excluding those that are reachable from r1 by ^r1 r2 and it can be written as r1..r2.
A similar notation r1...r2 is called symmetric difference of r1 and r2 and is defined as r1 r2 --not $(git
merge-base --all r1 r2). It is the set of commits that are reachable from either one of r1 or r2 but not from
both.
In these two shorthands, you can omit one end and let it default to HEAD. For example, origin.. is a shorthand
for origin..HEAD and asks "What did I do since I forked from the origin branch?" Similarly, ..origin is a
shorthand for HEAD..origin and asks "What did the origin do since I forked from them?" Note that .. would mean
HEAD..HEAD which is an empty range that is both reachable and unreachable from HEAD.
Two other shorthands for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its parent commits exist. The r1^@
notation means all parents of r1. r1^! includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents.
To summarize:
<rev>
Include commits that are reachable from (i.e. ancestors of) <rev>.
A suffix ^ followed by an at sign is the same as listing all parents of <rev> (meaning, include anything
reachable from its parents, but not the commit itself).
<rev>^!, e.g. HEAD^!
A suffix ^ followed by an exclamation mark is the same as giving commit <rev> and then all its parents
prefixed with ^ to exclude them (and their ancestors).
Here are a handful of examples:
D G H D
D F G H I J D F
^G D H D
^D B E I J F B
B..C C
B...C G H D E B C
^D B C E I J F B C
C I J F C
C^@ I J F
C^! C
F^! D G H D F
PARSEOPT
In --parseopt mode, git rev-parse helps massaging options to bring to shell scripts the same facilities C
builtins have. It works as an option normalizer (e.g. splits single switches aggregate values), a bit like
getopt(1) does.
It takes on the standard input the specification of the options to parse and understand, and echoes on the
standard output a string suitable for sh(1) eval to replace the arguments with normalized ones. In case of
error, it outputs usage on the standard error stream, and exits with code 129.
Note: Make sure you quote the result when passing it to eval. See below for an example.
Input Format
git rev-parse --parseopt input format is fully text based. It has two parts, separated by a line that contains
only --. The lines before the separator (should be more than one) are used for the usage. The lines after the
separator describe the options.
Each line of options has this format:
<opt_spec><flags>* SP+ help LF
<opt_spec>
its format is the short option character, then the long option name separated by a comma. Both parts are
not required, though at least one is necessary. h,help, dry-run and f are all three correct <opt_spec>.
<flags>
<flags> are of *, =, ? or !.
· Use = if the option takes an argument.
· Use ? to mean that the option is optional (though its use is discouraged).
some-command [options] <args>...
some-command does foo and bar!
--
h,help show the help
foo some nifty option --foo
bar= some cool option --bar with an argument
An option group Header
C? option C with an optional argument"
eval "$(echo "$OPTS_SPEC" | git rev-parse --parseopt -- "$@" || echo exit $?)"
SQ-QUOTE
In --sq-quote mode, git rev-parse echoes on the standard output a single line suitable for sh(1) eval. This
line is made by normalizing the arguments following --sq-quote. Nothing other than quoting the arguments is
done.
If you want command input to still be interpreted as usual by git rev-parse before the output is shell quoted,
see the --sq option.
Example
$ cat >your-git-script.sh <<\EOF
#!/bin/sh
args=$(git rev-parse --sq-quote "$@") # quote user-supplied arguments
command="git frotz -n24 $args" # and use it inside a handcrafted
# command line
eval "$command"
EOF
$ sh your-git-script.sh "a b'c"
EXAMPLES
· Print the object name of the current commit:
$ git rev-parse --verify HEAD
· Print the commit object name from the revision in the $REV shell variable:
$ git rev-parse --verify $REV^{commit}
This will error out if $REV is empty or not a valid revision.
· Similar to above:
$ git rev-parse --default master --verify $REV
but if $REV is empty, the commit object name from master will be printed.
GIT
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