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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | FIELD NAMES | EXAMPLES | CAVEATS | NOTES | SEE ALSO | GIT | COLOPHON |
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GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1) Git Manual GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)
git-for-each-ref - Output information on each ref
git for-each-ref [--count=<count>] [--shell|--perl|--python|--tcl]
[(--sort=<key>)...] [--format=<format>]
[--include-root-refs] [--points-at=<object>]
[--merged[=<object>]] [--no-merged[=<object>]]
[--contains[=<object>]] [--no-contains[=<object>]]
[(--exclude=<pattern>)...] [--start-after=<marker>]
[ --stdin | <pattern>... ]
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.
<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.
--stdin
If --stdin is supplied, then the list of patterns is read from
standard input instead of from the argument list.
--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. In addition, the string literal
%% renders as % and %xx - where xx are hex digits - renders as
the character with hex code xx. For example, %00 interpolates
to \0 (NUL), %09 to \t (TAB), and %0a to \n (LF).
When unspecified, <format> defaults to %(objectname) SPC
%(objecttype) TAB %(refname).
--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).
--no-merged[=<object>]
Only list refs whose tips are not reachable from the specified
commit (HEAD if not specified).
--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.
--omit-empty
Do not print a newline after formatted refs where the format
expands to the empty string.
--exclude=<pattern>
If one or more patterns are given, only refs which do not
match any excluded pattern(s) are shown. Matching is done
using the same rules as <pattern> above.
--include-root-refs
List root refs (HEAD and pseudorefs) apart from regular refs.
--start-after=<marker>
Allows paginating the output by skipping references up to and
including the specified marker. When paging, it should be
noted that references may be deleted, modified or added
between invocations. Output will only yield those references
which follow the marker lexicographically. Output begins from
the first reference that would come after the marker
alphabetically. Cannot be used with --sort=<key> or --stdin
options, or the <pattern> argument(s) to limit the refs.
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.
signature
The GPG signature of a commit.
signature:grade
Show "G" for a good (valid) signature, "B" for a bad
signature, "U" for a good signature with unknown validity, "X"
for a good signature that has expired, "Y" for a good
signature made by an expired key, "R" for a good signature
made by a revoked key, "E" if the signature cannot be checked
(e.g. missing key) and "N" for no signature.
signature:signer
The signer of the GPG signature of a commit.
signature:key
The key of the GPG signature of a commit.
signature:fingerprint
The fingerprint of the GPG signature of a commit.
signature:primarykeyfingerprint
The primary key fingerprint of the GPG signature of a commit.
signature:trustlevel
The trust level of the GPG signature of a commit. Possible
outputs are ultimate, fully, marginal, never and undefined.
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.
ahead-behind:<committish>
Two integers, separated by a space, demonstrating the number
of commits ahead and behind, respectively, when comparing the
output ref to the <committish> specified in the format.
is-base:<committish>
In at most one row, (<committish>) will appear to indicate the
ref that is most likely the ref used as a starting point for
the branch that produced <committish>. This choice is made
using a heuristic: choose the ref that minimizes the number of
commits in the first-parent history of <committish> and not in
the first-parent history of the ref.
For example, consider the following figure of first-parent
histories of several refs:
*--*--*--*--*--* refs/heads/A
\
\
*--*--*--* refs/heads/B
\ \
\ \
* * refs/heads/C
\
\
*--* refs/heads/D
Here, if A, B, and C are the filtered references, and the
format string is %(refname):%(is-base:D), then the output
would be
refs/heads/A:
refs/heads/B:(D)
refs/heads/C:
This is because the first-parent history of D has its earliest
intersection with the first-parent histories of the filtered
refs at a common first-parent ancestor of B and C and ties are
broken by the earliest ref in the sorted order.
Note that this token will not appear if the first-parent
history of <committish> does not intersect the first-parent
histories of the filtered refs.
describe[:options]
A human-readable name, like git-describe(1); empty string for
undescribable commits. The describe string may be followed by
a colon and one or more comma-separated options.
tags=<bool-value>
Instead of only considering annotated tags, consider
lightweight tags as well; see the corresponding option in
git-describe(1) for details.
abbrev=<number>
Use at least <number> hexadecimal digits; see the
corresponding option in git-describe(1) for details.
match=<pattern>
Only consider tags matching the given glob(7) pattern,
excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix; see the corresponding
option in git-describe(1) for details.
exclude=<pattern>
Do not consider tags matching the given glob(7) pattern,
excluding the "refs/tags/" prefix; see the corresponding
option in git-describe(1) for details.
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. Fields tree and parent can
also be used with modifier :short and :short=<length> just like
objectname.
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.
For tag objects, a fieldname prefixed with an asterisk (*) expands
to the fieldname value of the peeled object, rather than that of
the tag object itself.
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. For email fields (authoremail,
committeremail and taggeremail), :trim can be appended to get the
email without angle brackets, and :localpart to get the part
before the @ symbol out of the trimmed email. In addition to
these, the :mailmap option and the corresponding :mailmap,trim and
:mailmap,localpart can be used (order does not matter) to get
values of the name and email according to the .mailmap file or
according to the file set in the mailmap.file or mailmap.blob
configuration variable (see gitmailmap(5)).
The raw data in an object is raw.
raw:size
The raw data size of the object.
Note that --format=%(raw) can not be used with --python, --shell,
--tcl, because such language may not support arbitrary binary data
in their string variable type.
The message in a commit or a tag object is contents, from which
contents:<part> can be used to extract various parts out of:
contents:size
The size in bytes of the commit or tag message.
contents:subject
The first paragraph of the message, which typically is a
single line, is taken as the "subject" of the commit or the
tag message. Instead of contents:subject, field subject can
also be used to obtain same results. :sanitize can be
appended to subject for subject line suitable for filename.
contents:body
The remainder of the commit or the tag message that follows
the "subject".
contents:signature
The optional GPG signature of the tag.
contents:lines=N
The first N lines of the message.
Additionally, the trailers as interpreted by
git-interpret-trailers(1) are obtained as trailers[:options] (or
by using the historical alias contents:trailers[:options]). For
valid [:option] values see trailers section of git-log(1).
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). If this
formatting is provided in a --sort key, references will be sorted
according to the byte-value of the formatted string rather than
the numeric value of the underlying timestamp.
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.
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)"
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.
When combining multiple --contains and --no-contains filters, only
references that contain at least one of the --contains commits and
contain none of the --no-contains commits are shown.
When combining multiple --merged and --no-merged filters, only
references that are reachable from at least one of the --merged
commits and from none of the --no-merged commits are shown.
git-show-ref(1)
Part of the git(1) suite
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-branch(1), git-config(1), git-ls-remote(1), git-show-ref(1), git-tag(1)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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