GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1) Git Manual GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)
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>]
[--include-root-refs] [--points-at=<object>]
[--merged[=<object>]] [--no-merged[=<object>]]
[--contains[=<object>]] [--no-contains[=<object>]]
[(--exclude=<pattern>)...] [--start-after=<marker>]
[ --stdin | <pattern>... ]
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.
--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.
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 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.
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)"
CAVEATS
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.
NOTES
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.
SEE ALSO
git-show-ref(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.51.0 2025-08-17 GIT-FOR-EACH-REF(1)
git for each ref \- Output information on each ref