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GIT-SHOW-REF(1) Git Manual GIT-SHOW-REF(1)
NAME git-show-ref - List references in a local repository
SYNOPSIS git show-ref [-q | --quiet] [--verify] [--head] [-d | --dereference] [-s | --hash[=<n>]] [--abbrev[=<n>]] [--tags] [--heads] [--] [<pattern>...] git show-ref --exclude-existing[=<pattern>]

DESCRIPTION Displays references available in a local repository along with the associated commit IDs. Results can be filtered using a pattern and tags can be dereferenced into object IDs. Additionally, it can be used to test whether a particular ref exists.
By default, shows the tags, heads, and remote refs.
The --exclude-existing form is a filter that does the inverse. It reads refs from stdin, one ref per line, and shows those that don't exist in the local repository.
Use of this utility is encouraged in favor of directly accessing files under the .git directory.
OPTIONS --head Show the HEAD reference, even if it would normally be filtered out.
--heads, --tags Limit to "refs/heads" and "refs/tags", respectively. These options are not mutually exclusive; when given both, references stored in "refs/heads" and "refs/tags" are displayed.
-d, --dereference Dereference tags into object IDs as well. They will be shown with ^{} appended.
-s, --hash[=<n>] Only show the OID, not the reference name. When combined with --dereference, the dereferenced tag will still be shown after the OID.
--verify Enable stricter reference checking by requiring an exact ref path. Aside from returning an error code of 1, it will also print an error message if --quiet was not specified.
--abbrev[=<n>] Abbreviate the object name. When using --hash, you do not have to say --hash --abbrev; --hash=n would do.
-q, --quiet Do not print any results to stdout. When combined with --verify, this can be used to silently check if a reference exists.
--exclude-existing[=<pattern>]
<pattern>... Show references matching one or more patterns. Patterns are matched from the end of the full name, and only complete parts are matched, e.g. master matches refs/heads/master, refs/remotes/origin/master, refs/tags/jedi/master but not refs/heads/mymaster or refs/remotes/master/jedi.
OUTPUT The output is in the format:
<oid> SP <ref> LF

For example,
$ git show-ref --head --dereference 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 HEAD 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/master 832e76a9899f560a90ffd62ae2ce83bbeff58f54 refs/heads/origin 3521017556c5de4159da4615a39fa4d5d2c279b5 refs/tags/v0.99.9c 6ddc0964034342519a87fe013781abf31c6db6ad refs/tags/v0.99.9c^{} 055e4ae3ae6eb344cbabf2a5256a49ea66040131 refs/tags/v1.0rc4 423325a2d24638ddcc82ce47be5e40be550f4507 refs/tags/v1.0rc4^{} ...

When using --hash (and not --dereference), the output is in the format:
<oid> LF

For example,
$ git show-ref --heads --hash 2e3ba0114a1f52b47df29743d6915d056be13278 185008ae97960c8d551adcd9e23565194651b5d1 03adf42c988195b50e1a1935ba5fcbc39b2b029b ...

EXAMPLES To show all references called "master", whether tags or heads or anything else, and regardless of how deep in the reference naming hierarchy they are, use:
git show-ref master

This will show "refs/heads/master" but also "refs/remote/other-repo/master", if such references exists.
When using the --verify flag, the command requires an exact path:
git show-ref --verify refs/heads/master

will only match the exact branch called "master".
echo "$headname is not a valid branch"

to check whether a particular branch exists or not (notice how we don't actually want to show any results, and we want to use the full refname for it in order to not trigger the problem with ambiguous partial matches).
To show only tags, or only proper branch heads, use --tags and/or --heads respectively (using both means that it shows tags and heads, but not other random references under the refs/ subdirectory).
To do automatic tag object dereferencing, use the -d or --dereference flag, so you can do
git show-ref --tags --dereference

to get a listing of all tags together with what they dereference.
FILES .git/refs/*, .git/packed-refs
SEE ALSO git-for-each-ref(1), git-ls-remote(1), git-update-ref(1), gitrepository-layout(5)
GIT Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.42.0 2023-08-21 GIT-SHOW-REF(1)