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 synomym 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).

       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.

       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.

       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)"

SEE ALSO

       git-show-ref(1)

GIT

       Part of the git(1) suite