GIT-REV-PARSE(1) Git Manual GIT-REV-PARSE(1)

NAME

git-rev-parse - Pick out and massage parameters

SYNOPSIS

git rev-parse [<options>] <arg>...

DESCRIPTION

Many Git porcelainish commands take a mixture of flags (i.e.
parameters that begin with a dash -) and parameters meant for the
underlying git rev-list command they use internally and flags and
parameters for the other commands they use downstream of git
rev-list. The primary purpose of this command is to allow calling
programs to distinguish between them. There are a few other operation
modes that have nothing to do with the above "help parse command line
options".

Unless otherwise specified, most of the options and operation modes
require you to run this command inside a git repository or a working
tree that is under the control of a git repository, and will give you
a fatal error otherwise.

OPTIONS

Operation Modes

Each of these options must appear first on the command line.

--parseopt
Use git rev-parse in option parsing mode (see PARSEOPT section
below). The command in this mode can be used outside a repository
or a working tree controlled by a repository.

--sq-quote
Use git rev-parse in shell quoting mode (see SQ-QUOTE section
below). In contrast to the --sq option below, this mode only does
quoting. Nothing else is done to command input. The command in
this mode can be used outside a repository or a working tree
controlled by a repository.

Options for --parseopt
--keep-dashdash
Only meaningful in --parseopt mode. Tells the option parser to
echo out the first -- met instead of skipping it.

--stop-at-non-option
Only meaningful in --parseopt mode. Lets the option parser stop
at the first non-option argument. This can be used to parse
sub-commands that take options themselves.

--stuck-long
Only meaningful in --parseopt mode. Output the options in their
long form if available, and with their arguments stuck.

Options for Filtering

--revs-only
Do not output flags and parameters not meant for git rev-list
command.

--no-revs
Do not output flags and parameters meant for git rev-list
command.

--flags
Do not output non-flag parameters.

--no-flags
Do not output flag parameters.

Options for Output

--default <arg>
If there is no parameter given by the user, use <arg> instead.

--prefix <arg>
Behave as if git rev-parse was invoked from the <arg>
subdirectory of the working tree. Any relative filenames are
resolved as if they are prefixed by <arg> and will be printed in
that form.

This can be used to convert arguments to a command run in a
subdirectory so that they can still be used after moving to the
top-level of the repository. For example:

prefix=$(git rev-parse --show-prefix)
cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"
# rev-parse provides the -- needed for 'set'
eval "set $(git rev-parse --sq --prefix "$prefix" -- "$@")"

--verify
Verify that exactly one parameter is provided, and that it can be
turned into a raw 20-byte SHA-1 that can be used to access the
object database. If so, emit it to the standard output;
otherwise, error out.

If you want to make sure that the output actually names an object
in your object database and/or can be used as a specific type of
object you require, you can add the ^{type} peeling operator to
the parameter. For example, git rev-parse "$VAR^{commit}" will
make sure $VAR names an existing object that is a commit-ish
(i.e. a commit, or an annotated tag that points at a commit). To
make sure that $VAR names an existing object of any type, git
rev-parse "$VAR^{object}" can be used.

Note that if you are verifying a name from an untrusted source,
it is wise to use --end-of-options so that the name argument is
not mistaken for another option.

-q, --quiet
Only meaningful in --verify mode. Do not output an error message
if the first argument is not a valid object name; instead exit
with non-zero status silently. SHA-1s for valid object names are
printed to stdout on success.

--sq
Usually the output is made one line per flag and parameter. This
option makes output a single line, properly quoted for
consumption by shell. Useful when you expect your parameter to
contain whitespaces and newlines (e.g. when using pickaxe -S with
git diff-*). In contrast to the --sq-quote option, the command
input is still interpreted as usual.

--short[=<length>]
Same as --verify but shortens the object name to a unique prefix
with at least length characters. The minimum length is 4, the
default is the effective value of the core.abbrev configuration
variable (see git-config(1)).

--not
When showing object names, prefix them with ^ and strip ^ prefix
from the object names that already have one.

--abbrev-ref[=(strict|loose)]
A non-ambiguous short name of the objects name. The option
core.warnAmbiguousRefs is used to select the strict abbreviation
mode.

--symbolic
Usually the object names are output in SHA-1 form (with possible
^ prefix); this option makes them output in a form as close to
the original input as possible.

--symbolic-full-name
This is similar to --symbolic, but it omits input that are not
refs (i.e. branch or tag names; or more explicitly disambiguating
"heads/master" form, when you want to name the "master" branch
when there is an unfortunately named tag "master"), and shows
them as full refnames (e.g. "refs/heads/master").

--output-object-format=(sha1|sha256|storage)
Allow oids to be input from any object format that the current
repository supports.

Specifying "sha1" translates if necessary and returns a sha1 oid.

Specifying "sha256" translates if necessary and returns a sha256 oid.

Specifying "storage" translates if necessary and returns an oid in
encoded in the storage hash algorithm.

Options for Objects

--all
Show all refs found in refs/.

--branches[=<pattern>], --tags[=<pattern>], --remotes[=<pattern>]
Show all branches, tags, or remote-tracking branches,
respectively (i.e., refs found in refs/heads, refs/tags, or
refs/remotes, respectively).

If a pattern is given, only refs matching the given shell glob
are shown. If the pattern does not contain a globbing character
(?, *, or [), it is turned into a prefix match by appending /*.

--glob=<pattern>
Show all refs matching the shell glob pattern pattern. If the
pattern does not start with refs/, this is automatically
prepended. If the pattern does not contain a globbing character
(?, *, or [), it is turned into a prefix match by appending /*.

--exclude=<glob-pattern>
Do not include refs matching <glob-pattern> that the next --all,
--branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob would otherwise
consider. Repetitions of this option accumulate exclusion
patterns up to the next --all, --branches, --tags, --remotes, or
--glob option (other options or arguments do not clear
accumulated patterns).

The patterns given should not begin with refs/heads, refs/tags,
or refs/remotes when applied to --branches, --tags, or --remotes,
respectively, and they must begin with refs/ when applied to
--glob or --all. If a trailing /* is intended, it must be given
explicitly.

--exclude-hidden=(fetch|receive|uploadpack)
Do not include refs that would be hidden by git-fetch,
git-receive-pack or git-upload-pack by consulting the appropriate
fetch.hideRefs, receive.hideRefs or uploadpack.hideRefs
configuration along with transfer.hideRefs (see git-config(1)).
This option affects the next pseudo-ref option --all or --glob
and is cleared after processing them.

--disambiguate=<prefix>
Show every object whose name begins with the given prefix. The
<prefix> must be at least 4 hexadecimal digits long to avoid
listing each and every object in the repository by mistake.

Options for Files

--local-env-vars
List the GIT_* environment variables that are local to the
repository (e.g. GIT_DIR or GIT_WORK_TREE, but not GIT_EDITOR).
Only the names of the variables are listed, not their value, even
if they are set.

--path-format=(absolute|relative)
Controls the behavior of certain other options. If specified as
absolute, the paths printed by those options will be absolute and
canonical. If specified as relative, the paths will be relative
to the current working directory if that is possible. The default
is option specific.

This option may be specified multiple times and affects only the
arguments that follow it on the command line, either to the end
of the command line or the next instance of this option.

The following options are modified by --path-format:

--git-dir
Show $GIT_DIR if defined. Otherwise show the path to the .git
directory. The path shown, when relative, is relative to the
current working directory.

If $GIT_DIR is not defined and the current directory is not
detected to lie in a Git repository or work tree print a message
to stderr and exit with nonzero status.

--git-common-dir
Show $GIT_COMMON_DIR if defined, else $GIT_DIR.

--resolve-git-dir <path>
Check if <path> is a valid repository or a gitfile that points at
a valid repository, and print the location of the repository. If
<path> is a gitfile then the resolved path to the real repository
is printed.

--git-path <path>
Resolve "$GIT_DIR/<path>" and takes other path relocation
variables such as $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY, $GIT_INDEX_FILE... into
account. For example, if $GIT_OBJECT_DIRECTORY is set to /foo/bar
then "git rev-parse --git-path objects/abc" returns /foo/bar/abc.

--show-toplevel
Show the (by default, absolute) path of the top-level directory
of the working tree. If there is no working tree, report an
error.

--show-superproject-working-tree
Show the absolute path of the root of the superproject's working
tree (if exists) that uses the current repository as its
submodule. Outputs nothing if the current repository is not used
as a submodule by any project.

--shared-index-path
Show the path to the shared index file in split index mode, or
empty if not in split-index mode.

The following options are unaffected by --path-format:

--absolute-git-dir
Like --git-dir, but its output is always the canonicalized
absolute path.

--is-inside-git-dir
When the current working directory is below the repository
directory print "true", otherwise "false".

--is-inside-work-tree
When the current working directory is inside the work tree of the
repository print "true", otherwise "false".

--is-bare-repository
When the repository is bare print "true", otherwise "false".

--is-shallow-repository
When the repository is shallow print "true", otherwise "false".

--show-cdup
When the command is invoked from a subdirectory, show the path of
the top-level directory relative to the current directory
(typically a sequence of "../", or an empty string).

--show-prefix
When the command is invoked from a subdirectory, show the path of
the current directory relative to the top-level directory.

--show-object-format[=(storage|input|output)]
Show the object format (hash algorithm) used for the repository
for storage inside the .git directory, input, or output. For
input, multiple algorithms may be printed, space-separated. If
not specified, the default is "storage".

--show-ref-format
Show the reference storage format used for the repository.

Other Options

--since=<datestring>, --after=<datestring>
Parse the date string, and output the corresponding --max-age=
parameter for git rev-list.

--until=<datestring>, --before=<datestring>
Parse the date string, and output the corresponding --min-age=
parameter for git rev-list.

<arg>...
Flags and parameters to be parsed.

SPECIFYING REVISIONS

A revision parameter <rev> typically, but not necessarily, names a
commit object. It uses what is called an extended SHA-1 syntax. Here
are various ways to spell object names. The ones listed near the end
of this list name trees and blobs contained in a commit.

Note

This document shows the "raw" syntax as seen by git. The shell
and other UIs might require additional quoting to protect special
characters and to avoid word splitting.

<sha1>, e.g. dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735, dae86e
The full SHA-1 object name (40-byte hexadecimal string), or a
leading substring that is unique within the repository. E.g.
dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735 and dae86e both name the
same commit object if there is no other object in your repository
whose object name starts with dae86e.

<describeOutput>, e.g. v1.7.4.2-679-g3bee7fb
Output from git describe; i.e. a closest tag, optionally followed
by a dash and a number of commits, followed by a dash, a g, and
an abbreviated object name.

<refname>, e.g. master, heads/master, refs/heads/master
A symbolic ref name. E.g. master typically means the commit
object referenced by refs/heads/master. If you happen to have
both heads/master and tags/master, you can explicitly say
heads/master to tell Git which one you mean. When ambiguous, a
<refname> is disambiguated by taking the first match in the
following rules:

1. If $GIT_DIR/<refname> exists, that is what you mean (this is
usually useful only for HEAD, FETCH_HEAD, ORIG_HEAD,
MERGE_HEAD, REBASE_HEAD, REVERT_HEAD, CHERRY_PICK_HEAD,
BISECT_HEAD and AUTO_MERGE);

2. otherwise, refs/<refname> if it exists;

3. otherwise, refs/tags/<refname> if it exists;

4. otherwise, refs/heads/<refname> if it exists;

5. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname> if it exists;

6. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname>/HEAD if it exists.

HEAD
names the commit on which you based the changes in the
working tree.

FETCH_HEAD
records the branch which you fetched from a remote
repository with your last git fetch invocation.

ORIG_HEAD
is created by commands that move your HEAD in a drastic
way (git am, git merge, git rebase, git reset), to record
the position of the HEAD before their operation, so that
you can easily change the tip of the branch back to the
state before you ran them.

MERGE_HEAD
records the commit(s) which you are merging into your
branch when you run git merge.

REBASE_HEAD
during a rebase, records the commit at which the
operation is currently stopped, either because of
conflicts or an edit command in an interactive rebase.

REVERT_HEAD
records the commit which you are reverting when you run
git revert.

CHERRY_PICK_HEAD
records the commit which you are cherry-picking when you
run git cherry-pick.

BISECT_HEAD
records the current commit to be tested when you run git
bisect --no-checkout.

AUTO_MERGE
records a tree object corresponding to the state the ort
merge strategy wrote to the working tree when a merge
operation resulted in conflicts.

Note that any of the refs/* cases above may come either from the
$GIT_DIR/refs directory or from the $GIT_DIR/packed-refs file.
While the ref name encoding is unspecified, UTF-8 is preferred as
some output processing may assume ref names in UTF-8.

@
@ alone is a shortcut for HEAD.

[<refname>]@{<date>}, e.g. master@{yesterday}, HEAD@{5 minutes ago}
A ref followed by the suffix @ with a date specification enclosed
in a brace pair (e.g. {yesterday}, {1 month 2 weeks 3 days 1
hour 1 second ago} or {1979-02-26 18:30:00}) specifies the value
of the ref at a prior point in time. This suffix may only be used
immediately following a ref name and the ref must have an
existing log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>). Note that this looks up the
state of your local ref at a given time; e.g., what was in your
local master branch last week. If you want to look at commits
made during certain times, see --since and --until.

<refname>@{<n>}, e.g. master@{1}
A ref followed by the suffix @ with an ordinal specification
enclosed in a brace pair (e.g. {1}, {15}) specifies the n-th
prior value of that ref. For example master@{1} is the immediate
prior value of master while master@{5} is the 5th prior value of
master. This suffix may only be used immediately following a ref
name and the ref must have an existing log
($GIT_DIR/logs/<refname>).

@{<n>}, e.g. @{1}
You can use the @ construct with an empty ref part to get at a
reflog entry of the current branch. For example, if you are on
branch blabla then @{1} means the same as blabla@{1}.

@{-<n>}, e.g. @{-1}
The construct @{-<n>} means the <n>th branch/commit checked out
before the current one.

[<branchname>]@{upstream}, e.g. master@{upstream}, @{u}
A branch B may be set up to build on top of a branch X
(configured with branch.<name>.merge) at a remote R (configured
with branch.<name>.remote). B@{u} refers to the remote-tracking
branch for the branch X taken from remote R, typically found at
refs/remotes/R/X.

[<branchname>]@{push}, e.g. master@{push}, @{push}
The suffix @{push} reports the branch "where we would push to" if
git push were run while branchname was checked out (or the
current HEAD if no branchname is specified). Like for
@{upstream}, we report the remote-tracking branch that
corresponds to that branch at the remote.

Here's an example to make it more clear:

$ git config push.default current
$ git config remote.pushdefault myfork
$ git switch -c mybranch origin/master

$ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{upstream}
refs/remotes/origin/master

$ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{push}
refs/remotes/myfork/mybranch

Note in the example that we set up a triangular workflow, where
we pull from one location and push to another. In a
non-triangular workflow, @{push} is the same as @{upstream}, and
there is no need for it.

This suffix is also accepted when spelled in uppercase, and means
the same thing no matter the case.

<rev>^[<n>], e.g. HEAD^, v1.5.1^0
A suffix ^ to a revision parameter means the first parent of that
commit object. ^<n> means the <n>th parent (i.e. <rev>^ is
equivalent to <rev>^1). As a special rule, <rev>^0 means the
commit itself and is used when <rev> is the object name of a tag
object that refers to a commit object.

<rev>~[<n>], e.g. HEAD~, master~3
A suffix ~ to a revision parameter means the first parent of that
commit object. A suffix ~<n> to a revision parameter means the
commit object that is the <n>th generation ancestor of the named
commit object, following only the first parents. I.e. <rev>~3 is
equivalent to <rev>^^^ which is equivalent to <rev>^1^1^1. See
below for an illustration of the usage of this form.

<rev>^{<type>}, e.g. v0.99.8^{commit}
A suffix ^ followed by an object type name enclosed in brace pair
means dereference the object at <rev> recursively until an object
of type <type> is found or the object cannot be dereferenced
anymore (in which case, barf). For example, if <rev> is a
commit-ish, <rev>^{commit} describes the corresponding commit
object. Similarly, if <rev> is a tree-ish, <rev>^{tree} describes
the corresponding tree object. <rev>^0 is a short-hand for
<rev>^{commit}.

<rev>^{object} can be used to make sure <rev> names an object
that exists, without requiring <rev> to be a tag, and without
dereferencing <rev>; because a tag is already an object, it does
not have to be dereferenced even once to get to an object.

<rev>^{tag} can be used to ensure that <rev> identifies an
existing tag object.

<rev>^{}, e.g. v0.99.8^{}
A suffix ^ followed by an empty brace pair means the object could
be a tag, and dereference the tag recursively until a non-tag
object is found.

<rev>^{/<text>}, e.g. HEAD^{/fix nasty bug}
A suffix ^ to a revision parameter, followed by a brace pair that
contains a text led by a slash, is the same as the :/fix nasty
bug syntax below except that it returns the youngest matching
commit which is reachable from the <rev> before ^.

:/<text>, e.g. :/fix nasty bug
A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a text, names a commit
whose commit message matches the specified regular expression.
This name returns the youngest matching commit which is reachable
from any ref, including HEAD. The regular expression can match
any part of the commit message. To match messages starting with a
string, one can use e.g. :/^foo. The special sequence :/! is
reserved for modifiers to what is matched. :/!-foo performs a
negative match, while :/!!foo matches a literal ! character,
followed by foo. Any other sequence beginning with :/! is
reserved for now. Depending on the given text, the shell's word
splitting rules might require additional quoting.

<rev>:<path>, e.g. HEAD:README, master:./README
A suffix : followed by a path names the blob or tree at the given
path in the tree-ish object named by the part before the colon. A
path starting with ./ or ../ is relative to the current working
directory. The given path will be converted to be relative to the
working tree's root directory. This is most useful to address a
blob or tree from a commit or tree that has the same tree
structure as the working tree.

:[<n>:]<path>, e.g. :0:README, :README
A colon, optionally followed by a stage number (0 to 3) and a
colon, followed by a path, names a blob object in the index at
the given path. A missing stage number (and the colon that
follows it) names a stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage 1 is the
common ancestor, stage 2 is the target branch's version
(typically the current branch), and stage 3 is the version from
the branch which is being merged.

Here is an illustration, by Jon Loeliger. Both commit nodes B and C
are parents of commit node A. Parent commits are ordered
left-to-right.

G H I J
\ / \ /
D E F
\ | / \
\ | / |
\|/ |
B C
\ /
\ /
A

A = = A^0
B = A^ = A^1 = A~1
C = = A^2
D = A^^ = A^1^1 = A~2
E = B^2 = A^^2
F = B^3 = A^^3
G = A^^^ = A^1^1^1 = A~3
H = D^2 = B^^2 = A^^^2 = A~2^2
I = F^ = B^3^ = A^^3^
J = F^2 = B^3^2 = A^^3^2

SPECIFYING RANGES

History traversing commands such as git log operate on a set of
commits, not just a single commit.

For these commands, specifying a single revision, using the notation
described in the previous section, means the set of commits reachable
from the given commit.

Specifying several revisions means the set of commits reachable from
any of the given commits.

A commit's reachable set is the commit itself and the commits in its
ancestry chain.

There are several notations to specify a set of connected commits
(called a "revision range"), illustrated below.

Commit Exclusions

^<rev> (caret) Notation
To exclude commits reachable from a commit, a prefix ^ notation
is used. E.g. ^r1 r2 means commits reachable from r2 but exclude
the ones reachable from r1 (i.e. r1 and its ancestors).

Dotted Range Notations

The .. (two-dot) Range Notation
The ^r1 r2 set operation appears so often that there is a
shorthand for it. When you have two commits r1 and r2 (named
according to the syntax explained in SPECIFYING REVISIONS above),
you can ask for commits that are reachable from r2 excluding
those that are reachable from r1 by ^r1 r2 and it can be written
as r1..r2.

The ... (three-dot) Symmetric Difference Notation
A similar notation r1...r2 is called symmetric difference of r1
and r2 and is defined as r1 r2 --not $(git merge-base --all r1
r2). It is the set of commits that are reachable from either one
of r1 (left side) or r2 (right side) but not from both.

In these two shorthand notations, you can omit one end and let it
default to HEAD. For example, origin.. is a shorthand for
origin..HEAD and asks "What did I do since I forked from the origin
branch?" Similarly, ..origin is a shorthand for HEAD..origin and asks
"What did the origin do since I forked from them?" Note that .. would
mean HEAD..HEAD which is an empty range that is both reachable and
unreachable from HEAD.

Commands that are specifically designed to take two distinct ranges
(e.g. "git range-diff R1 R2" to compare two ranges) do exist, but
they are exceptions. Unless otherwise noted, all "git" commands that
operate on a set of commits work on a single revision range. In other
words, writing two "two-dot range notation" next to each other, e.g.

$ git log A..B C..D

does not specify two revision ranges for most commands. Instead it
will name a single connected set of commits, i.e. those that are
reachable from either B or D but are reachable from neither A or C.
In a linear history like this:

---A---B---o---o---C---D

because A and B are reachable from C, the revision range specified by
these two dotted ranges is a single commit D.

Other <rev>^ Parent Shorthand Notations
Three other shorthands exist, particularly useful for merge commits,
for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its parent commits.

The r1^@ notation means all parents of r1.

The r1^! notation includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents.
By itself, this notation denotes the single commit r1.

The <rev>^-[<n>] notation includes <rev> but excludes the <n>th
parent (i.e. a shorthand for <rev>^<n>..<rev>), with <n> = 1 if not
given. This is typically useful for merge commits where you can just
pass <commit>^- to get all the commits in the branch that was merged
in merge commit <commit> (including <commit> itself).

While <rev>^<n> was about specifying a single commit parent, these
three notations also consider its parents. For example you can say
HEAD^2^@, however you cannot say HEAD^@^2.

REVISION RANGE SUMMARY

<rev>
Include commits that are reachable from <rev> (i.e. <rev> and its
ancestors).

^<rev>
Exclude commits that are reachable from <rev> (i.e. <rev> and its
ancestors).

<rev1>..<rev2>
Include commits that are reachable from <rev2> but exclude those
that are reachable from <rev1>. When either <rev1> or <rev2> is
omitted, it defaults to HEAD.

<rev1>...<rev2>
Include commits that are reachable from either <rev1> or <rev2>
but exclude those that are reachable from both. When either
<rev1> or <rev2> is omitted, it defaults to HEAD.

<rev>^@, e.g. HEAD^@
A suffix ^ followed by an at sign is the same as listing all
parents of <rev> (meaning, include anything reachable from its
parents, but not the commit itself).

<rev>^!, e.g. HEAD^!
A suffix ^ followed by an exclamation mark is the same as giving
commit <rev> and all its parents prefixed with ^ to exclude them
(and their ancestors).

<rev>^-<n>, e.g. HEAD^-, HEAD^-2
Equivalent to <rev>^<n>..<rev>, with <n> = 1 if not given.

Here are a handful of examples using the Loeliger illustration above,
with each step in the notation's expansion and selection carefully
spelt out:

Args Expanded arguments Selected commits
D G H D
D F G H I J D F
^G D H D
^D B E I J F B
^D B C E I J F B C
C I J F C
B..C = ^B C C
B...C = B ^F C G H D E B C
B^- = B^..B
= ^B^1 B E I J F B
C^@ = C^1
= F I J F
B^@ = B^1 B^2 B^3
= D E F D G H E F I J
C^! = C ^C^@
= C ^C^1
= C ^F C
B^! = B ^B^@
= B ^B^1 ^B^2 ^B^3
= B ^D ^E ^F B
F^! D = F ^I ^J D G H D F

PARSEOPT

In --parseopt mode, git rev-parse helps massaging options to bring to
shell scripts the same facilities C builtins have. It works as an
option normalizer (e.g. splits single switches aggregate values), a
bit like getopt(1) does.

It takes on the standard input the specification of the options to
parse and understand, and echoes on the standard output a string
suitable for sh(1) eval to replace the arguments with normalized
ones. In case of error, it outputs usage on the standard error
stream, and exits with code 129.

Note: Make sure you quote the result when passing it to eval. See
below for an example.

Input Format

git rev-parse --parseopt input format is fully text based. It has two
parts, separated by a line that contains only --. The lines before
the separator (should be one or more) are used for the usage. The
lines after the separator describe the options.

Each line of options has this format:

<opt-spec><flags>*<arg-hint>? SP+ help LF

<opt-spec>
its format is the short option character, then the long option
name separated by a comma. Both parts are not required, though at
least one is necessary. May not contain any of the <flags>
characters. h,help, dry-run and f are examples of correct
<opt-spec>.

<flags>
<flags> are of *, =, ? or !.

+o Use = if the option takes an argument.

+o Use ? to mean that the option takes an optional argument. You
probably want to use the --stuck-long mode to be able to
unambiguously parse the optional argument.

+o Use * to mean that this option should not be listed in the
usage generated for the -h argument. It's shown for
--help-all as documented in gitcli(7).

+o Use ! to not make the corresponding negated long option
available.

<arg-hint>
<arg-hint>, if specified, is used as a name of the argument in
the help output, for options that take arguments. <arg-hint> is
terminated by the first whitespace. It is customary to use a dash
to separate words in a multi-word argument hint.

The remainder of the line, after stripping the spaces, is used as the
help associated with the option.

Blank lines are ignored, and lines that don't match this
specification are used as option group headers (start the line with a
space to create such lines on purpose).

Example

OPTS_SPEC="\
some-command [<options>] <args>...

some-command does foo and bar!
--
h,help! show the help

foo some nifty option --foo
bar= some cool option --bar with an argument
baz=arg another cool option --baz with a named argument
qux?path qux may take a path argument but has meaning by itself

An option group Header
C? option C with an optional argument"

eval "$(echo "$OPTS_SPEC" | git rev-parse --parseopt -- "$@" || echo exit $?)"

Usage text

When "$@" is -h or --help in the above example, the following usage
text would be shown:

usage: some-command [<options>] <args>...

some-command does foo and bar!

-h, --help show the help
--[no-]foo some nifty option --foo
--[no-]bar ... some cool option --bar with an argument
--[no-]baz <arg> another cool option --baz with a named argument
--[no-]qux[=<path>] qux may take a path argument but has meaning by itself

An option group Header
-C[...] option C with an optional argument

SQ-QUOTE
In --sq-quote mode, git rev-parse echoes on the standard output a
single line suitable for sh(1) eval. This line is made by normalizing
the arguments following --sq-quote. Nothing other than quoting the
arguments is done.

If you want command input to still be interpreted as usual by git
rev-parse before the output is shell quoted, see the --sq option.

Example

$ cat >your-git-script.sh <<\EOF
#!/bin/sh
args=$(git rev-parse --sq-quote "$@") # quote user-supplied arguments
command="git frotz -n24 $args" # and use it inside a handcrafted
# command line
eval "$command"
EOF

$ sh your-git-script.sh "a b'c"

EXAMPLES

+o Print the object name of the current commit:

$ git rev-parse --verify HEAD

+o Print the commit object name from the revision in the $REV shell
variable:

$ git rev-parse --verify --end-of-options $REV^{commit}

This will error out if $REV is empty or not a valid revision.

+o Similar to above:

$ git rev-parse --default master --verify --end-of-options $REV

but if $REV is empty, the commit object name from master will be
printed.

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-REV-PARSE(1)