Re: Git Feature Request - show current branch

[Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>]

Junio C Hamano venit, vidit, dixit 19.02.2015 19:10:
> Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> writes:
> 
>> Randall S. Becker venit, vidit, dixit 19.02.2015 14:32:
>>> git symbolic-ref --short HEAD
>>
>> That errors out when HEAD is detached.
> 
> Isn't that what you would want to happen anyway?
> 
> 	if current=$(that command)
>         then
>         	you know $current is checked out
> 	else
>         	you know HEAD is detached
> 	fi
> 
> If you used another command that gives either the name of the
> current branch or 4-letter H-E-A-D without any other indication, you
> cannot tell if you checked out the "HEAD" branch aka refs/heads/HEAD
> or you are not on any branch.  The former would happen after doing
> this:
> 
>     $ git update-ref refs/heads/HEAD HEAD
>     $ git checkout HEAD
> 
> Of course, this is not a recommended practice, and "git branch"
> these days refuses to create refs/heads/HEAD to discourage you from
> doing so by mistake, but there is no guarantee that the repository
> whatever script you are writing to work in was created and used by
> sane people ;-) so you would want to be defensive, no?
> 

If you want to be defenive, don't use --abbrev-ref, just git rev-parse
--symbolic-full-name  HEAD

The original request was for a one-liner, I think.

Michael