git-for-each-ref

GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)               Git Manual               GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)

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 them according to
       the given <format>, after sorting them according to the given set of
       <key>. If <count> is given, stop after showing that many refs. The
       interpolated values in <format> can optionally be quoted as string
       literals in the specified host language allowing their direct
       evaluation in that language.

OPTIONS
       <pattern>...
           If one or more patterns are given, only refs are shown that match
           against at least one pattern, either using fnmatch(3) or literally,
           in the latter case matching completely or from the beginning up to
           a slash.

       --count=<count>
           By default the command shows all refs that match <pattern>. This
           option makes it stop after showing that many refs.

       --sort=<key>
           A field name to sort on. Prefix - to sort in descending order of
           the value. When unspecified, refname is used. You may use the
           --sort=<key> option multiple times, in which case the last key
           becomes the primary key.

       --format=<format>
           A string that interpolates %(fieldname) from a ref being shown and
           the object it points at. If fieldname is prefixed with an asterisk
           (*) and the ref points at a tag object, use the value for the field
           in the object which 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 xx are hex digits interpolates
           to character with hex code xx; for example %00 interpolates to \0
           (NUL), %09 to \t (TAB) and %0a to \n (LF).

       --color[=<when>]
           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 for the specified host language.
           This is meant to produce a scriptlet that can directly be `eval`ed.

       --points-at=<object>
           Only list refs which points at the given object.

       --merged[=<object>]
           Only list refs whose tips are reachable from the specified commit
           (HEAD if not specified), incompatible with --no-merged.

       --no-merged[=<object>]
           Only list refs whose tips are not reachable from the specified
           commit (HEAD if not specified), incompatible with --merged.

       --contains[=<object>]
           Only list refs which contain the specified commit (HEAD if not
           specified).

       --no-contains[=<object>]
           Only list refs which don't contain the specified commit (HEAD if
           not specified).

       --ignore-case
           Sorting and filtering refs are case insensitive.

FIELD NAMES
       Various values from structured fields in referenced objects can be used
       to interpolate into the resulting output, or as sort keys.

       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 strict abbreviation
           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 as necessary from
           the specified end to leave -<N> path components (e.g.
           %(refname:lstrip=-2) turns refs/tags/foo into tags/foo and
           %(refname:rstrip=-1) turns refs/tags/foo into refs). When the ref
           does not have enough components, the result becomes an empty string
           if stripping with positive <N>, or it becomes the full refname if
           stripping with negative <N>. 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 on
           disk. 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. The length may be exceeded to ensure
           unique object names.

       deltabase
           This expands to the object name of the delta base for the given
           object, if it is stored as a delta. Otherwise it expands 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. Additionally respects :track to show "[ahead N,
           behind M]" and :trackshort to show the terse version: ">" (ahead),
           "<" (behind), "<>" (ahead and behind), or "=" (in sync).  :track
           also prints "[gone]" whenever unknown upstream ref is encountered.
           Append :track,nobracket to show tracking information 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 the
           name of the tracked remote ref, respectively. In other words, the
           remote-tracking branch can be updated explicitly and individually
           by using the refspec %(upstream:remoteref):%(upstream) to fetch
           from %(upstream:remotename).

           Has no effect if the ref does not have tracking information
           associated with 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 :remoteref options 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 color names
           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 by width=<width> and
           position=<position> in any order separated by a comma, where the
           <position> is either left, right or middle, default being left and
           <width> is the total length of the content with alignment. For
           brevity, the "width=" and/or "position=" prefixes may be omitted,
           and bare <width> and <position> used instead. For instance,
           %(align:<width>,<position>). If the contents length is more than
           the width then no alignment is performed. If used with --quote
           everything in between %(align:...) and %(end) is quoted, but if
           nested then only the topmost level performs quoting.

       if
           Used as %(if)...%(then)...%(end) or
           %(if)...%(then)...%(else)...%(end). If there is an atom with value
           or string literal after the %(if) then everything after the %(then)
           is printed, else if the %(else) atom is used, then everything after
           %(else) is printed. We ignore space when evaluating the string
           before %(then), this is useful when we use the %(HEAD) atom which
           prints either "*" or " " and we want to apply the if condition only
           on the HEAD ref. Append ":equals=<string>" or ":notequals=<string>"
           to compare the value between the %(if:...) and %(then) atoms with
           the given string.

       symref
           The ref which the given symbolic ref refers to. If not a symbolic
           ref, nothing is printed. Respects the :short, :lstrip and :rstrip
           options in the same way as refname above.

       worktreepath
           The absolute path to the worktree in which the ref is checked out,
           if it is checked out in any linked worktree. Empty string
           otherwise.

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

       For commit and tag objects, the special creatordate and creator fields
       will correspond to the appropriate date or name-email-date tuple from
       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 concatenation of all
       lines of the commit message up to the first blank line. The next line
       is contents:body, where body is all of the lines after the first blank
       line. The optional GPG signature is contents:signature. The first 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 alias contents:trailers).
       Non-trailer lines from the trailer block can be omitted with
       trailers:only. Whitespace-continuations can be removed from trailers so
       that each trailer appears on a line by itself with its full content
       with trailers: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 using
       the fieldname version:refname or its alias v:refname.

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

       As a special case for the date-type fields, you may specify a format
       for the date by adding : followed by date format name (see the values
       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, everything
       between a top-level opening atom and its matching %(end) is evaluated
       according to the semantics of the opening atom and only its result from
       the top-level is quoted.

EXAMPLES
       An example directly producing formatted text. Show the most recent 3
       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 format may
       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
       care should be taken in drawing conclusions about which refs or objects
       are responsible for disk usage. The size of a packed non-delta object
       may be much larger than the size of objects which delta against it, but
       the choice of which object is the base and which is the delta is
       arbitrary and is subject to change during a repack.

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

SEE ALSO
       git-show-ref(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023               GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)