How to find the last branch checked out in git

Question

We can checkout the last branch using git checkout -, but is there a way to just find out what was last branch and not check it out?

EDIT: I already found that I could use:

git reflog | grep -i "checkout: moving"|head -1|cut -d' ' -f6

But I wanted to know if there is a direct simpler command. I am updating the question to reflect this need. Sorry about not being clear enough

Answer 1

Your sample output (as produced by git reflog | ...) makes it sufficiently clear.

The git rev-parse command can be combined with the reference lookup syntax to do this in one go:

$ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{-1}
refs/heads/stash-exp
$ git rev-parse --abbrev-ref @{-1}
stash-exp

Note that the gitrevisions documentation describes the @{-N} syntax. Note as well that if there is no N'th previous branch, rev-parse silently prints nothing at all:

$ git rev-parse --abbrev-ref @{-2} && echo ok || echo fail
master
ok
$ git rev-parse --abbrev-ref @{-3} && echo ok || echo fail
ok

And, of course, in most places where you might need the name, you can just use the @{-1} syntax directly.

Answer 2

git reflog is what you want to use. In this, you'll find:

• What you've last committed (denoted by "commit")
• What you've checked out (denoted by "checkout")
• When you've pulled (denoted by "pull")

What you've checked out is important here; the reflog will use a format denoted with "checkout" and specify "moving from A to B" when looking at specific branches.

A simple grep for "checkout: moving" will give you a list of the branches you've visited; the last one is at the top.

Full command for completeness:

git reflog | grep -i "checkout: moving"