git show-ref

for-each-ref's older, simpler sibling.

🎯 What & why

git show-ref lists refs (branches, tags, HEAD) with their SHAs. It's the older, simpler sibling of for-each-ref.

🧠 Mental model

Walks .git/refs and packed-refs, prints '<sha> <refname>' lines. No format string, no sorting, no fancy filters - just refs and hashes.

🛠️ Synopsis

git show-ref [-q|--quiet] [--verify] [--head] [-d|--dereference]
             [-s|--hash[=<n>]] [--abbrev[=<n>]] [--tags] [--heads] [--] [<pattern>...]
git show-ref --exists <ref>

🎚️ Switches & options

Flag	What it does
`--head`	Include HEAD in the listing.
`--heads`	Limit to refs/heads/* (local branches).
`--tags`	Limit to refs/tags/*.
`-d, --dereference`	For annotated tags, also show the dereferenced commit as <ref>^{}.
`-s, --hash[=<n>]`	Print only the SHA (optionally abbreviated).
`--abbrev[=<n>]`	Abbreviate the SHA to <n> hex chars.
`--verify`	Strict mode: arg must be a full ref (refs/...); fail otherwise.
`-q, --quiet`	No output; exit code only - useful with --verify or --exists.

📦 Subcommands

--exists — Test whether a ref exists without dereferencing.

git show-ref --exists refs/heads/main

💡 Use cases

Quick scripted check 'does this branch/tag exist?' via --verify --quiet.
Dump all tags with their commit SHAs for a release manifest.
Diff local refs vs a packed-refs file when chasing ref-corruption.
Cheap alternative to for-each-ref in older Git or one-liners.

🧪 Examples

List everything plus HEAD

git show-ref --head

Just the tag SHAs (abbreviated)

git show-ref --tags --hash=12

Verify a branch exists, silently

git show-ref --verify --quiet refs/heads/main

Resolve annotated tags to commits

git show-ref -d --tags

🎓 Recommendations

Use for-each-ref for new scripts - it has --format and --sort and is the actively-favored interface.
Always pair --verify with full refs (refs/heads/foo), never short names.
For exists-tests on modern Git (>=2.35), prefer --exists over parsing --verify --quiet output.

🪤 Common pitfalls

Without --verify, a pattern matches by suffix - 'main' matches refs/heads/main AND refs/heads/topic/main.
Annotated tags show the tag-object SHA, not the commit; use -d to also print the commit.
Exit code 1 means 'no matching ref' - easy to confuse with a real error in scripts.

🔗 Related modules

📝 Quiz

Hit each option, then Check answers. Score is recorded; Next is always open.