git-rev-parse(1)

NAME

git-rev-parse - Pick out and massage parameters

SYNOPSIS

git rev-parse [<options>] <arg>…

DESCRIPTION

Many Git porcelainish commands take a 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. The primary purpose of this command is to allow calling programs to distinguish between them. There are a few other operation modes that have nothing to do with the above "help parse command line options".

Unless otherwise specified, most of the options and operation modes require you to run this command inside a git repository or a working tree that is under the control of a git repository, and will give you a fatal error otherwise.

OPTIONS

Operation Modes

Each of these options must appear first on the command line.

--parseopt: Use git rev-parse in option parsing mode (see PARSEOPT section below). The command in this mode can be used outside a repository or a working tree controlled by a repository.
--sq-quote: Use git rev-parse in shell quoting mode (see SQ-QUOTE section below). In contrast to the --sq option below, this mode only does quoting. Nothing else is done to command input. The command in this mode can be used outside a repository or a working tree controlled by a repository.

Options for --parseopt

--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.
--stuck-long: Only meaningful in --parseopt mode. Output the options in their long form if available, and with their arguments stuck.

Options for Filtering

--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.

Options for Output

--default <arg>

If there is no parameter given by the user, use <arg> instead.

--prefix <arg>

Behave as if git rev-parse was invoked from the <arg> subdirectory of the working tree. Any relative filenames are resolved as if they are prefixed by <arg> and will be printed in that form.

This can be used to convert arguments to a command run in a subdirectory so that they can still be used after moving to the top-level of the repository. For example:

prefix=$(git rev-parse --show-prefix)
cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"
# rev-parse provides the -- needed for 'set'
eval "set $(git rev-parse --sq --prefix "$prefix" -- "$@")"

--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 you require, you can add the ^{type} peeling operator to the parameter. 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.

Note that if you are verifying a name from an untrusted source, it is wise to use --end-of-options so that the name argument is not mistaken for another option.

-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. SHA-1s for valid object names are printed to stdout on success.

--sq

Usually the output is made one line per flag and parameter. This option makes output a single line, properly quoted for consumption by shell. Useful when you expect your parameter to contain whitespaces and newlines (e.g. when using pickaxe -S with git diff-*). In contrast to the --sq-quote option, the command input is still interpreted as usual.

--short[=<length>]

Same as --verify but shortens the object name to a unique prefix with at least length characters. The minimum length is 4, the default is the effective value of the core.abbrev configuration variable (see linkgit:git-config[1]).

--not

When showing object names, prefix them with ^ and strip ^ prefix from the object names that already have one.

--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.

--symbolic

Usually the object names are output in SHA-1 form (with possible ^ prefix); this option makes them output 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 shows them as full refnames (e.g. "refs/heads/master").

--output-object-format=(sha1|sha256|storage)

Allow oids to be input from any object format that the current repository supports.

Specifying "sha1" translates if necessary and returns a sha1 oid.

Specifying "sha256" translates if necessary and returns a sha256 oid.

Specifying "storage" translates if necessary and returns an oid in
encoded in the storage hash algorithm.

Options for Objects

--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 /*.
--exclude=<glob-pattern>: Do not include refs matching <glob-pattern> that the next --all, --branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob would otherwise consider. Repetitions of this option accumulate exclusion patterns up to the next --all, --branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob option (other options or arguments do not clear accumulated patterns).

The patterns given should not begin with refs/heads, refs/tags, or refs/remotes when applied to --branches, --tags, or --remotes, respectively, and they must begin with refs/ when applied to --glob or --all. If a trailing /* is intended, it must be given explicitly.
--exclude-hidden=(fetch|receive|uploadpack): Do not include refs that would be hidden by git-fetch, git-receive-pack or git-upload-pack by consulting the appropriate fetch.hideRefs, receive.hideRefs or uploadpack.hideRefs configuration along with transfer.hideRefs (see linkgit:git-config[1]). This option affects the next pseudo-ref option --all or --glob and is cleared after processing them.
--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.

Options for Files

--local-env-vars: List the GIT_* environment variables that are local to the repository (e.g. GIT_DIR or GIT_WORK_TREE, but not GIT_EDITOR). Only the names of the variables are listed, not their value, even if they are set.
--path-format=(absolute|relative): Controls the behavior of certain other options. If specified as absolute, the paths printed by those options will be absolute and canonical. If specified as relative, the paths will be relative to the current working directory if that is possible. The default is option specific.

This option may be specified multiple times and affects only the arguments that follow it on the command line, either to the end of the command line or the next instance of this option.

The following options are modified by --path-format:

--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.
--git-common-dir: Show $GIT_COMMON_DIR if defined, else $GIT_DIR.
--resolve-git-dir <path>: Check if <path> is a valid repository or a gitfile that points at a valid repository, and print the location of the repository. If <path> is a gitfile then the resolved path to the real repository is printed.
--git-path <path>: Resolve "$GIT_DIR/<path>" and takes other path relocation variables such as $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY, $GIT_INDEX_FILE… into account. For example, if $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY is set to /foo/bar then "git rev-parse --git-path objects/abc" returns /foo/bar/abc.
--show-toplevel: Show the (by default, absolute) path of the top-level directory of the working tree. If there is no working tree, report an error.
--show-superproject-working-tree: Show the absolute path of the root of the superproject’s working tree (if exists) that uses the current repository as its submodule. Outputs nothing if the current repository is not used as a submodule by any project.
--shared-index-path: Show the path to the shared index file in split index mode, or empty if not in split-index mode.

The following options are unaffected by --path-format:

--absolute-git-dir: Like --git-dir, but its output is always the canonicalized absolute path.
--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".
--is-bare-repository: When the repository is bare print "true", otherwise "false".
--is-shallow-repository: When the repository is shallow print "true", otherwise "false".
--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).
--show-prefix: When the command is invoked from a subdirectory, show the path of the current directory relative to the top-level directory.
--show-object-format[=(storage|input|output)]: Show the object format (hash algorithm) used for the repository for storage inside the .git directory, input, or output. For input, multiple algorithms may be printed, space-separated. If not specified, the default is "storage".
--show-ref-format: Show the reference storage format used for the repository.

Other Options

--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.
<arg>…: Flags and parameters to be parsed.

role=include

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 one or more) are used for the usage. The lines after the separator describe the options.

Each line of options has this format:

<opt-spec><flags>*<arg-hint>? 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. May not contain any of the <flags> characters. h,help, dry-run and f are examples of correct <opt-spec>.

<flags>

<flags> are of *, =, ? or !.

Use = if the option takes an argument.
Use ? to mean that the option takes an optional argument. You probably want to use the --stuck-long mode to be able to unambiguously parse the optional argument.
Use * to mean that this option should not be listed in the usage generated for the -h argument. It’s shown for --help-all as documented in linkgit:gitcli[7].
Use ! to not make the corresponding negated long option available.

<arg-hint>

<arg-hint>, if specified, is used as a name of the argument in the help output, for options that take arguments. <arg-hint> is terminated by the first whitespace. It is customary to use a dash to separate words in a multi-word argument hint.

The remainder of the line, after stripping the spaces, is used as the help associated with the option.

Blank lines are ignored, and lines that don’t match this specification are used as option group headers (start the line with a space to create such lines on purpose).

Example

OPTS_SPEC="\
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
baz=arg   another cool option --baz with a named argument
qux?path  qux may take a path argument but has meaning by itself

  An option group Header
C?        option C with an optional argument"

eval "$(echo "$OPTS_SPEC" | git rev-parse --parseopt -- "$@" || echo exit $?)"

Usage text

When "$@" is -h or --help in the above example, the following usage text would be shown:

usage: some-command [<options>] <args>...

    some-command does foo and bar!

    -h, --help            show the help
    --[no-]foo            some nifty option --foo
    --[no-]bar ...        some cool option --bar with an argument
    --[no-]baz <arg>      another cool option --baz with a named argument
    --[no-]qux[=<path>]   qux may take a path argument but has meaning by itself

An option group Header
    -C[...]               option C with an optional argument

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 --end-of-options $REV^{commit}
```
This will error out if $REV is empty or not a valid revision.
Similar to above:
```
$ git rev-parse --default master --verify --end-of-options $REV
```
but if $REV is empty, the commit object name from master will be printed.

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git-rev-parse(1)

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

Operation Modes

Options for --parseopt

Options for Filtering

Options for Output

Options for Objects

Options for Files

Other Options

PARSEOPT

Input Format

Example

Usage text

SQ-QUOTE

Example

EXAMPLES

GIT

Files

git-rev-parse.adoc

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History

git-rev-parse.adoc

File metadata and controls

git-rev-parse(1)

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

Operation Modes

Options for --parseopt

Options for Filtering

Options for Output

Options for Objects

Options for Files

Other Options

PARSEOPT

Input Format

Example

Usage text

SQ-QUOTE

Example

EXAMPLES

GIT