NAME

git-for-each-ref - Output information on each ref

SYNOPSIS

git for-each-ref [--count=<count>] [--shell|--perl|--python|--tcl]
           [(--sort=<key>)…​] [--format=<format>] [<pattern>…​]
           [--points-at=<object>]
           (--merged[=<object>] | --no-merged[=<object>])
           [--contains[=<object>]] [--no-contains[=<object>]]

DESCRIPTION

Iterate over all refs that match <pattern> and show themaccording to the given <format>, after sorting them accordingto the given set of <key>. If <count> is given, stop aftershowing that many refs. The interpolated values in <format>can optionally be quoted as string literals in the specifiedhost language allowing their direct evaluation in that language.

OPTIONS

• …​

• If one or more patterns are given, only refs are shown thatmatch against at least one pattern, either using fnmatch(3) orliterally, in the latter case matching completely or from thebeginning up to a slash.

• —count=

• By default the command shows all refs that match<pattern>. This option makes it stop after showingthat many refs.

• —sort=

• A field name to sort on. Prefix - to sort indescending order of the value. When unspecified,refname is used. You may use the —sort= optionmultiple times, in which case the last key becomes the primarykey.

• —format=

• A string that interpolates %(fieldname) from a ref being shownand the object it points at. If fieldnameis prefixed with an asterisk (*) and the ref pointsat a tag object, use the value for the field in the objectwhich the tag object refers to (instead of the field in the tag object).When unspecified, <format> defaults to%(objectname) SPC %(objecttype) TAB %(refname).It also interpolates %% to %, and %xx where xxare hex digits interpolates to character with hex codexx; for example %00 interpolates to \0 (NUL),%09 to \t (TAB) and %0a to \n (LF).

• —color[=]

• Respect any colors specified in the —format option. The<when> field must be one of always, never, or auto (if<when> is absent, behave as if always was given).

• —shell

• —perl
• —python
• —tcl

• If given, strings that substitute %(fieldname)placeholders are quoted as string literals suitable forthe specified host language. This is meant to producea scriptlet that can directly be evaled.

• —points-at=

FIELD NAMES

Various values from structured fields in referenced objects canbe used to interpolate into the resulting output, or as sortkeys.

For all objects, the following names can be used:

• refname
• The name of the ref (the part after $GIT_DIR/).For a non-ambiguous short name of the ref append :short.The option core.warnAmbiguousRefs is used to select the strictabbreviation mode. If lstrip=<N> (rstrip=<N>) is appended, strips <N>slash-separated path components from the front (back) of the refname(e.g. %(refname:lstrip=2) turns refs/tags/foo into foo and%(refname:rstrip=2) turns refs/tags/foo into refs).If <N> is a negative number, strip as many path components asnecessary from the specified end to leave -<N> path components(e.g. %(refname:lstrip=-2) turnsrefs/tags/foo into tags/foo and %(refname:rstrip=-1)turns refs/tags/foo into refs). When the ref does not haveenough components, the result becomes an empty string ifstripping with positive , or it becomes the full refname ifstripping with negative . Neither is an error.

strip can be used as a synonym to lstrip.

• objecttype

• The type of the object (blob, tree, commit, tag).

• objectsize

• The size of the object (the same as git cat-file -s reports).Append :disk to get the size, in bytes, that the object takes up ondisk. See the note about on-disk sizes in the CAVEATS section below.

• objectname

• The object name (aka SHA-1).For a non-ambiguous abbreviation of the object name append :short.For an abbreviation of the object name with desired length append:short=<length>, where the minimum length is MINIMUM_ABBREV. Thelength may be exceeded to ensure unique object names.

• deltabase

• This expands to the object name of the delta base for thegiven object, if it is stored as a delta. Otherwise itexpands to the null object name (all zeroes).

• upstream

• The name of a local ref which can be considered “upstream”from the displayed ref. Respects :short, :lstrip and:rstrip in the same way as refname above. Additionallyrespects :track to show "[ahead N, behind M]" and:trackshort to show the terse version: ">" (ahead), "<"(behind), "<>" (ahead and behind), or "=" (in sync). :trackalso prints "[gone]" whenever unknown upstream ref isencountered. Append :track,nobracket to show trackinginformation without brackets (i.e "ahead N, behind M").

For any remote-tracking branch %(upstream), %(upstream:remotename)and %(upstream:remoteref) refer to the name of the remote and thename of the tracked remote ref, respectively. In other words, theremote-tracking branch can be updated explicitly and individually byusing the refspec %(upstream:remoteref):%(upstream) to fetch from%(upstream:remotename).

Has no effect if the ref does not have tracking information associatedwith it. All the options apart from nobracket are mutually exclusive,but if used together the last option is selected.

• push

• The name of a local ref which represents the @{push}location for the displayed ref. Respects :short, :lstrip,:rstrip, :track, :trackshort, :remotename, and :remoterefoptions as upstream does. Produces an empty string if no @{push}ref is configured.

• HEAD

• * if HEAD matches current ref (the checked out branch), ' 'otherwise.

• color

• Change output color. Followed by :<colorname>, where colornames are described under Values in the "CONFIGURATION FILE"section of git-config[1]. For example,%(color:bold red).

• align

• Left-, middle-, or right-align the content between%(align:…​) and %(end). The "align:" is followed bywidth=<width> and position=<position> in any orderseparated by a comma, where the <position> is either left,right or middle, default being left and <width> is the totallength of the content with alignment. For brevity, the"width=" and/or "position=" prefixes may be omitted, and bare and used instead. For instance,%(align:<width>,<position>). If the contents length is morethan the width then no alignment is performed. If used with—quote everything in between %(align:…​) and %(end) isquoted, but if nested then only the topmost level performsquoting.

• if

• Used as %(if)…​%(then)…​%(end) or%(if)…​%(then)…​%(else)…​%(end). If there is an atom withvalue or string literal after the %(if) then everything afterthe %(then) is printed, else if the %(else) atom is used, theneverything after %(else) is printed. We ignore space whenevaluating the string before %(then), this is useful when weuse the %(HEAD) atom which prints either "*" or " " and wewant to apply the if condition only on the HEAD ref.Append ":equals=" or ":notequals=" to comparethe value between the %(if:…​) and %(then) atoms with thegiven string.

• symref

• The ref which the given symbolic ref refers to. If not asymbolic ref, nothing is printed. Respects the :short,:lstrip and :rstrip options in the same way as refnameabove.

• worktreepath

• The absolute path to the worktree in which the ref is checkedout, if it is checked out in any linked worktree. Empty stringotherwise.

In addition to the above, for commit and tag objects, the headerfield names (tree, parent, object, type, and tag) canbe used to specify the value in the header field.

For commit and tag objects, the special creatordate and creatorfields will correspond to the appropriate date or name-email-date tuplefrom the committer or tagger fields depending on the object type.These are intended for working on a mix of annotated and lightweight tags.

Fields that have name-email-date tuple as its value (author,committer, and tagger) can be suffixed with name, email,and date to extract the named component.

The complete message in a commit and tag object is contents.Its first line is contents:subject, where subject is the concatenationof all lines of the commit message up to the first blank line. The nextline is contents:body, where body is all of the lines after the firstblank line. The optional GPG signature is contents:signature. Thefirst N lines of the message is obtained using contents:lines=N.Additionally, the trailers as interpreted by git-interpret-trailers[1]are obtained as trailers (or by using the historical aliascontents:trailers). Non-trailer lines from the trailer block can be omittedwith trailers:only. Whitespace-continuations can be removed from trailers sothat each trailer appears on a line by itself with its full content withtrailers:unfold. Both can be used together as trailers:unfold,only.

For sorting purposes, fields with numeric values sort in numeric order(objectsize, authordate, committerdate, creatordate, taggerdate).All other fields are used to sort in their byte-value order.

There is also an option to sort by versions, this can be done by usingthe fieldname version:refname or its alias v:refname.

In any case, a field name that refers to a field inapplicable tothe object referred by the ref does not cause an error. Itreturns an empty string instead.

As a special case for the date-type fields, you may specify a format forthe date by adding : followed by date format name (see thevalues the —date option to git-rev-list[1] takes).

Some atoms like %(align) and %(if) always require a matching %(end).We call them "opening atoms" and sometimes denote them as %($open).

When a scripting language specific quoting is in effect, everythingbetween a top-level opening atom and its matching %(end) is evaluatedaccording to the semantics of the opening atom and only its resultfrom the top-level is quoted.

EXAMPLES

An example directly producing formatted text. Show the most recent3 tagged commits:

#!/bin/sh
 
git for-each-ref --count=3 --sort='-*authordate' \
--format='From: %(*authorname) %(*authoremail)
Subject: %(*subject)
Date: %(*authordate)
Ref: %(*refname)
 
%(*body)
' 'refs/tags'

A simple example showing the use of shell eval on the output,demonstrating the use of —shell. List the prefixes of all heads:

#!/bin/sh
 
git for-each-ref --shell --format="ref=%(refname)" refs/heads | \
while read entry
do
    eval "$entry"
    echo `dirname $ref`
done

A bit more elaborate report on tags, demonstrating that the formatmay be an entire script:

#!/bin/sh
 
fmt='
    r=%(refname)
    t=%(*objecttype)
    T=${r#refs/tags/}
 
    o=%(*objectname)
    n=%(*authorname)
    e=%(*authoremail)
    s=%(*subject)
    d=%(*authordate)
    b=%(*body)
 
    kind=Tag
    if test "z$t" = z
    then
        # could be a lightweight tag
        t=%(objecttype)
        kind="Lightweight tag"
        o=%(objectname)
        n=%(authorname)
        e=%(authoremail)
        s=%(subject)
        d=%(authordate)
        b=%(body)
    fi
    echo "$kind $T points at a $t object $o"
    if test "z$t" = zcommit
    then
        echo "The commit was authored by $n $e
at $d, and titled
 
    $s
 
Its message reads as:
"
        echo "$b" | sed -e "s/^/    /"
        echo
    fi
'
 
eval=`git for-each-ref --shell --format="$fmt" \
    --sort='*objecttype' \
    --sort=-taggerdate \
    refs/tags`
eval "$eval"

An example to show the usage of %(if)…​%(then)…​%(else)…​%(end).This prefixes the current branch with a star.

git for-each-ref --format="%(if)%(HEAD)%(then)* %(else)  %(end)%(refname:short)" refs/heads/

An example to show the usage of %(if)…​%(then)…​%(end).This prints the authorname, if present.

git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)%(if)%(authorname)%(then) Authored by: %(authorname)%(end)"

CAVEATS

Note that the sizes of objects on disk are reported accurately, but careshould be taken in drawing conclusions about which refs or objects areresponsible for disk usage. The size of a packed non-delta object may bemuch larger than the size of objects which delta against it, but thechoice of which object is the base and which is the delta is arbitraryand is subject to change during a repack.

Note also that multiple copies of an object may be present in the objectdatabase; in this case, it is undefined which copy’s size or delta basewill be reported.

SEE ALSO

git-show-ref[1]

GIT

Part of the git[1] suite