How do I determine what branch I have checked out in git?

Question

I clone my source using git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/p/mediawiki/core.git w/. Then I specify a specific branch/tag by doing git checkout <tag name> or git checkout origin/REL<release number>. Sometimes I forget what branch I'm on.

In SVN I would do a svn info to figure out what branch I'm using.

How do I determine what branch/tag I am on?

Clydesdale

Does this answer your question? How do I get the current branch name in Git? – Unworthy

Answer 1

git branch

tells you what branch you're on (with a * marker).

Tags are just names for revisions, so Git won't tell you that you're "on" a tag, but you can use git name-rev HEAD to get a sense for what it might be.

Foran

git branch just gives me: * (no branch) master. BUT git name-rev HEAD does exactly what I want it to. – Clydesdale

You get (no branch) because you're not "on a branch" anymore. You have what git calls a "detached HEAD" (which, as someone noted, is rather graphic if you think about it :-) ). Anyway, it's important to keep in mind that "being on a branch", in git terms, requires that you be at the tip of the branch. Otherwise you're "detached". If you add new commits when you're "detached", you create a new, unnamed branch. – Nibelung

Answer 2

The current branch is marked with a * in the output of git branch. Example:

$ git branch
  branch1
* branch2
  master

Diversified

Answer 3

How do I determine what branch/tag I am on?

First, since Git 2.22 (Q2 2019), you have git branch --show-current which directly shows you your current checked out branch.

Second, it won't show anything if you are in a checked out worktree (created with git worktree add)

For that, check Git 2.23 (Q3 2019), with its "git branch --list" which learned to show branches that are checked out in other worktrees connected to the same repository prefixed with '+', similar to the way the currently checked out branch is shown with '*' in front.

Example:

See commit 6e93814, commit ab31381, commit 2582083 (29 Apr 2019) by Nickolai Belakovski (``).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 99eea64, 09 Jul 2019)}

branch: add worktree info on verbose output

To display worktree path for refs checked out in a linked worktree

The git branch documentation now states:

The current branch will be highlighted in green and marked with an asterisk.
Any branches checked out in linked worktrees will be highlighted in cyan and marked with a plus sign.

Equipotential

Answer 4

If you use the bash shell, you can use __git_ps1 in your bash prompt to show this, for example:

[me@myhost:~/code/myproject] (master)$ ls

Download git-completion.bash to ~/.git-completion.bash

Then in your ~/.bashrc file, add

source ~/.git-completion.bash

Then set your PS1 value to something including $(__git_ps1 "(%s)"), something like:

PS1="[\u@\h:\w]\$(__git_ps1)\\$ "

Monaghan

per the comments in git-completion.bash I believe that function has been extracted to a dedicated script github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/completion/git-prompt.sh – Velodrome

Answer 5

Some sed and regex magic:

git reflog | grep "checkout: moving from" | sed -n '1p' | sed -e 's/^[[:alnum:]]\+ HEAD@{[[:digit:]]\+}: checkout: moving from \([^[:space:]]\+\) to \([^[:space:]]\+\)$/\2/'

Booking

Answer 6

Why not consider using a nice prompt for your shell?
Starship for Bash or Oh My Zsh for Zsh, or several superb ones are out there.
I'm in love with starship personally :)
https://github.com/CrazyOptimist/dotfiles
You will keep track of more than git branch info once you adopt one.

Stricker

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - From Review – Akron

Answer 7

git branch

using this command tells you at what branch you are by an * marker.

Glowworm