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git/Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt
Martin von Zweigbergk 7791a1d9b9 Documentation: use [verse] for SYNOPSIS sections
The SYNOPSIS sections of most commands that span several lines already
use [verse] to retain line breaks. Most commands that don't span
several lines seem not to use [verse]. In the HTML output, [verse]
does not only preserve line breaks, but also makes the section
indented, which causes a slight inconsistency between commands that
use [verse] and those that don't. Use [verse] in all SYNOPSIS sections
for consistency.

Also remove the blank lines from git-fetch.txt and git-rebase.txt to
align with the other man pages. In the case of git-rebase.txt, which
already uses [verse], the blank line makes the [verse] not apply to
the last line, so removing the blank line also makes the formatting
within the document more consistent.

While at it, add single quotes to 'git cvsimport' for consistency with
other commands.

Signed-off-by: Martin von Zweigbergk <martin.von.zweigbergk@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2011-07-06 14:26:26 -07:00

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git-symbolic-ref(1)
===================
NAME
----
git-symbolic-ref - Read and modify symbolic refs
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [-m <reason>] <name> [<ref>]
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>.
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
-------
-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.
-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`.
This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by
default, but on platforms that do not have working symlinks,
or that do not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit
cumbersome. On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as
advertised (horrors). Therefore symbolic links are now deprecated
and symbolic refs 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 linkgit:git[1] suite