What is this branch tracking (if anything) in git?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3631706

  •  26-09-2019
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Question

After creating a branch with --track (or leaving the default, or --notrack), you later wish to be reminded of what a branch is tracking. Is there a way, other than searching through the .git/config file, to display what a branch is tracking?

Was it helpful?

Solution

Use: git branch -vv to see which branches are tracked and which are not.

OTHER TIPS

If you want to know for a given branch, you could do:

git config --get branch.<branch>.remote

If it prints a remote, it's tracking something. If it prints nothing and returns failure, it's not.

Note that with git1.8.3 (April 22d, 2013), you have a new way to emphasize the upstream branch:

"git branch --vv" learned to paint the name of the branch it integrates with in a different color (color.branch.upstream, which defaults to blue).

C:\prog\git\git>git branch -vv
* master 118f60e [origin/master] Sync with maint
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                       |
                       --- now in blue

If you need to access this information in an automated fashion you will want to avoid trying to parse the output of branch -vv (slebetman’s answer).

Git provides a set of lower-level commands with stable interfaces and output formats. These commands (called “plumbing”) are the preferred interface for ‘scripting’ purposes. The git for-each-ref command can provide the required information via the upstream token (available in Git 1.6.3 and later):

% git for-each-ref --shell --format='

b=%(refname:short) u=%(upstream:short)
# Make a fancy report or do something scripty with the values.
if test -n "$u"; then
  printf "%s merges from %s\n" "$b" "$u" 
else
  printf "%s does not merge from anything\n" "$b" 
fi

' refs/heads/ | sh
master merges from origin/master
other does not merge from anything
pu merges from origin/pu

Thanks for the hint Jefromi

With the following command you can get the remote tracking branch for a specific branch.

git config --get branch.<branch>.merge

To change the remote tracking branch you can simply change this config value.

Note: this is an alternative way to git branch -vv (already answered here)
and git branch -u (Make an existing Git branch track a remote branch?)

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