git-check-ref-format.html

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 733 </script>
 734 </head>
 735 <body class="manpage">
 736 <div id="header">
 737 <h1>
 738 git-check-ref-format(1) Manual Page
 739 </h1>
 740 <h2>NAME</h2>
 741 <div class="sectionbody">
 742 <p>git-check-ref-format -
 743    Ensures that a reference name is well formed
 744 </p>
 745 </div>
 746 </div>
 747 <div id="content">
 748 <div class="sect1">
 749 <h2 id="_synopsis">SYNOPSIS</h2>
 750 <div class="sectionbody">
 751 <div class="verseblock">
 752 <pre class="content"><em>git check-ref-format</em> [--normalize]
 753        [--[no-]allow-onelevel] [--refspec-pattern]
 754        &lt;refname&gt;
 755 <em>git check-ref-format</em> --branch &lt;branchname-shorthand&gt;</pre>
 756 <div class="attribution">
 757 </div></div>
 758 </div>
 759 </div>
 760 <div class="sect1">
 761 <h2 id="_description">DESCRIPTION</h2>
 762 <div class="sectionbody">
 763 <div class="paragraph"><p>Checks if a given <em>refname</em> is acceptable, and exits with a non-zero
 764 status if it is not.</p></div>
 765 <div class="paragraph"><p>A reference is used in Git to specify branches and tags.  A
 766 branch head is stored in the <code>refs/heads</code> hierarchy, while
 767 a tag is stored in the <code>refs/tags</code> hierarchy of the ref namespace
 768 (typically in <code>$GIT_DIR/refs/heads</code> and <code>$GIT_DIR/refs/tags</code>
 769 directories or, as entries in file <code>$GIT_DIR/packed-refs</code>
 770 if refs are packed by <code>git gc</code>).</p></div>
 771 <div class="paragraph"><p>Git imposes the following rules on how references are named:</p></div>
 772 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
 773 <li>
 774 <p>
 775 They can include slash <code>/</code> for hierarchical (directory)
 776   grouping, but no slash-separated component can begin with a
 777   dot <code>.</code> or end with the sequence <code>.lock</code>.
 778 </p>
 779 </li>
 780 <li>
 781 <p>
 782 They must contain at least one <code>/</code>. This enforces the presence of a
 783   category like <code>heads/</code>, <code>tags/</code> etc. but the actual names are not
 784   restricted.  If the <code>--allow-onelevel</code> option is used, this rule
 785   is waived.
 786 </p>
 787 </li>
 788 <li>
 789 <p>
 790 They cannot have two consecutive dots <code>..</code> anywhere.
 791 </p>
 792 </li>
 793 <li>
 794 <p>
 795 They cannot have ASCII control characters (i.e. bytes whose
 796   values are lower than \040, or \177 <code>DEL</code>), space, tilde <code>~</code>,
 797   caret <code>^</code>, or colon <code>:</code> anywhere.
 798 </p>
 799 </li>
 800 <li>
 801 <p>
 802 They cannot have question-mark <code>?</code>, asterisk <code>*</code>, or open
 803   bracket <code>[</code> anywhere.  See the <code>--refspec-pattern</code> option below for
 804   an exception to this rule.
 805 </p>
 806 </li>
 807 <li>
 808 <p>
 809 They cannot begin or end with a slash <code>/</code> or contain multiple
 810   consecutive slashes (see the <code>--normalize</code> option below for an
 811   exception to this rule).
 812 </p>
 813 </li>
 814 <li>
 815 <p>
 816 They cannot end with a dot <code>.</code>.
 817 </p>
 818 </li>
 819 <li>
 820 <p>
 821 They cannot contain a sequence <code>@{</code>.
 822 </p>
 823 </li>
 824 <li>
 825 <p>
 826 They cannot be the single character <code>@</code>.
 827 </p>
 828 </li>
 829 <li>
 830 <p>
 831 They cannot contain a <code>\</code>.
 832 </p>
 833 </li>
 834 </ol></div>
 835 <div class="paragraph"><p>These rules make it easy for shell script based tools to parse
 836 reference names, pathname expansion by the shell when a reference name is used
 837 unquoted (by mistake), and also avoid ambiguities in certain
 838 reference name expressions (see <a href="gitrevisions.html">gitrevisions(7)</a>):</p></div>
 839 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
 840 <li>
 841 <p>
 842 A double-dot <code>..</code> is often used as in <code>ref1..ref2</code>, and in some
 843   contexts this notation means <code>^ref1 ref2</code> (i.e. not in
 844   <code>ref1</code> and in <code>ref2</code>).
 845 </p>
 846 </li>
 847 <li>
 848 <p>
 849 A tilde <code>~</code> and caret <code>^</code> are used to introduce the postfix
 850   <em>nth parent</em> and <em>peel onion</em> operation.
 851 </p>
 852 </li>
 853 <li>
 854 <p>
 855 A colon <code>:</code> is used as in <code>srcref:dstref</code> to mean "use srcref&#8217;s
 856   value and store it in dstref" in fetch and push operations.
 857   It may also be used to select a specific object such as with
 858   <em>git cat-file</em>: "git cat-file blob v1.3.3:refs.c".
 859 </p>
 860 </li>
 861 <li>
 862 <p>
 863 at-open-brace <code>@{</code> is used as a notation to access a reflog entry.
 864 </p>
 865 </li>
 866 </ol></div>
 867 <div class="paragraph"><p>With the <code>--branch</code> option, the command takes a name and checks if
 868 it can be used as a valid branch name (e.g. when creating a new
 869 branch). But be cautious when using the
 870 previous checkout syntax that may refer to a detached HEAD state.
 871 The rule <code>git check-ref-format --branch $name</code> implements
 872 may be stricter than what <code>git check-ref-format refs/heads/$name</code>
 873 says (e.g. a dash may appear at the beginning of a ref component,
 874 but it is explicitly forbidden at the beginning of a branch name).
 875 When run with the <code>--branch</code> option in a repository, the input is first
 876 expanded for the &#8220;previous checkout syntax&#8221;
 877 <code>@{-n}</code>.  For example, <code>@{-1}</code> is a way to refer the last thing that
 878 was checked out using "git switch" or "git checkout" operation.
 879 This option should be
 880 used by porcelains to accept this syntax anywhere a branch name is
 881 expected, so they can act as if you typed the branch name. As an
 882 exception note that, the &#8220;previous checkout operation&#8221; might result
 883 in a commit object name when the N-th last thing checked out was not
 884 a branch.</p></div>
 885 </div>
 886 </div>
 887 <div class="sect1">
 888 <h2 id="_options">OPTIONS</h2>
 889 <div class="sectionbody">
 890 <div class="dlist"><dl>
 891 <dt class="hdlist1">
 892 --[no-]allow-onelevel
 893 </dt>
 894 <dd>
 895 <p>
 896         Controls whether one-level refnames are accepted (i.e.,
 897         refnames that do not contain multiple <code>/</code>-separated
 898         components).  The default is <code>--no-allow-onelevel</code>.
 899 </p>
 900 </dd>
 901 <dt class="hdlist1">
 902 --refspec-pattern
 903 </dt>
 904 <dd>
 905 <p>
 906         Interpret &lt;refname&gt; as a reference name pattern for a refspec
 907         (as used with remote repositories).  If this option is
 908         enabled, &lt;refname&gt; is allowed to contain a single <code>*</code>
 909         in the refspec (e.g., <code>foo/bar*/baz</code> or <code>foo/bar*baz/</code>
 910         but not <code>foo/bar*/baz*</code>).
 911 </p>
 912 </dd>
 913 <dt class="hdlist1">
 914 --normalize
 915 </dt>
 916 <dd>
 917 <p>
 918         Normalize <em>refname</em> by removing any leading slash (<code>/</code>)
 919         characters and collapsing runs of adjacent slashes between
 920         name components into a single slash.  If the normalized
 921         refname is valid then print it to standard output and exit
 922         with a status of 0, otherwise exit with a non-zero status.
 923         (<code>--print</code> is a deprecated way to spell <code>--normalize</code>.)
 924 </p>
 925 </dd>
 926 </dl></div>
 927 </div>
 928 </div>
 929 <div class="sect1">
 930 <h2 id="_examples">EXAMPLES</h2>
 931 <div class="sectionbody">
 932 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 933 <li>
 934 <p>
 935 Print the name of the previous thing checked out:
 936 </p>
 937 <div class="listingblock">
 938 <div class="content">
 939 <pre><code>$ git check-ref-format --branch @{-1}</code></pre>
 940 </div></div>
 941 </li>
 942 <li>
 943 <p>
 944 Determine the reference name to use for a new branch:
 945 </p>
 946 <div class="listingblock">
 947 <div class="content">
 948 <pre><code>$ ref=$(git check-ref-format --normalize "refs/heads/$newbranch")||
 949 { echo "we do not like '$newbranch' as a branch name." &gt;&amp;2 ; exit 1 ; }</code></pre>
 950 </div></div>
 951 </li>
 952 </ul></div>
 953 </div>
 954 </div>
 955 <div class="sect1">
 956 <h2 id="_git">GIT</h2>
 957 <div class="sectionbody">
 958 <div class="paragraph"><p>Part of the <a href="git.html">git(1)</a> suite</p></div>
 959 </div>
 960 </div>
 961 </div>
 962 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
 963 <div id="footer">
 964 <div id="footer-text">
 965 Last updated
 966  2023-10-23 14:43:46 PDT
 967 </div>
 968 </div>
 969 </body>
 970 </html>