# git-symbolic-ref(1) Manual Page

## NAME

git-symbolic-ref - Read, modify and delete symbolic refs

## SYNOPSIS

    git symbolic-ref [-m <reason>] <name> <ref>
    git symbolic-ref [-q] [--short] [--no-recurse] <name>
    git symbolic-ref --delete [-q] <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>.

Given `--delete` and an additional argument, deletes the given symbolic 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

-d
--delete

  Delete the symbolic ref <name>.

-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`.

--recurse
--no-recurse

  When showing the value of <name> as a symbolic ref, if <name> refers to another symbolic ref, follow such a chain of symbolic refs until the result no longer points at a symbolic ref (`--recurse`, which is the default). `--no-recurse` stops after dereferencing only a single level of symbolic ref.

-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