Re: git-branch --print-current

On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 4:28 AM, Karl Chen [off-list ref] wrote:

How about an option to git-branch that just prints the name of the
current branch for scripts' sake?  To replace:

   git branch --no-color 2>/dev/null | perl -ne '/^[*] (.*)/ && print $1'

I tend to support your request especially that extracting the current
branch is something that is done regularly. Looking in my own scripts/aliases
and some of my colleagues, there are plenty of variation using Perl,
sed, awk, tr
and Python to extract the current branch.

Using git-symbolic-ref is not obvious, especially that the summary/name
 of the man page is :

"git-symbolic-ref - Read and modify symbolic refs"

But the description is pretty clear :

"Given one argument, reads which branch head the given symbolic ref refers to
and outputs its path, relative to the .git/ directory. Typically you
would give HEAD
as the <name> argument to see on which branch your working tree is on."

But naturally, as a lazy user, you will pick git-branch especially
that's the tools is listed
with the most commonly used git commands with a very attractive description :

"branch     List, create, or delete branches"

On an user perspective, having the option in git-branch seems more natural.

Just a comment,

-- 
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