debian man page for git-symbolic-ref

GIT-SYMBOLIC-REF(1)						    Git Manual						       GIT-SYMBOLIC-REF(1)

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

SYNOPSIS
       git symbolic-ref [-m <reason>] <name> <ref>
       git symbolic-ref [-q] [--short] <name>

DESCRIPTION
       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 which branch your working tree is on.

       Given two arguments, creates or updates a symbolic ref <name> to point at the given branch <ref>.

       A symbolic ref is a regular file that stores a string that begins with ref: refs/. For example, your .git/HEAD is a regular file whose
       contents is ref: refs/heads/master.

OPTIONS
       -q, --quiet
	   Do not issue an error message if the <name> is not a symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit with non-zero status silently.

       --short
	   When showing the value of <name> as a symbolic ref, try to shorten the value, e.g. from refs/heads/master to master.

       -m
	   Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>. This is valid only when creating or updating a symbolic ref.

NOTES
       In the past, .git/HEAD was a symbolic link pointing at refs/heads/master. When we wanted to switch to another branch, we did ln -sf
       refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD, and when we wanted to find out which branch we are on, we did readlink .git/HEAD. But symbolic links are
       not entirely portable, so they are now deprecated and symbolic refs (as described above) are used by default.

       git symbolic-ref will exit with status 0 if the contents of the symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested name is
       not a symbolic ref, or 128 if another error occurs.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 1.7.10.4							    11/24/2012						       GIT-SYMBOLIC-REF(1)