Re: bash: unescaped `>` character when switching branches

Phillip Wood
2025-06-25T13:57:39Z

On 25/06/2025 09:53, Kristoffer Haugsbakk wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2025, at 14:59, Ondrej Pohorelsky wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Our customer has found a possible issue when switching branches.
>> Output redirection character `>` is not escaped properly when
>> switching/checking out to different branch.
>>
>> Steps to reproduce:
>> 1. Create a new branch and switch back to master
>> ```
>> $ git switch -C 'issue#1234>/tmp/dangerfile'
>> Switched to a new branch 'issue#1234>/tmp/dangerfile'
>> $ git switch master
>> ```
>
> It’s too bad that git-check-ref-format(1) does not disallow `>`.

It also allows `<`, `$`, `&`, `;`, `(`, `)`, `#`, `"`, `'`, '`' and `|`.
Our ref format is not designed for them to be used unquoted in the
shell. I think the problem here is with our completion script not
quoting the refname, not the format.

Best Wishes

Phillip
> It would be nice to have an opt-in extension to the ref format check
> which disallows `>`.
>