How to get the current git branch in shell

Question

I'm trying to write a shell script that should fail out if the current git branch doesn't match a pre-defined value.

if $gitBranch != 'my-branch'; then
   echo 'fail'
   exit 1
fi

Unfortunately, my shell scripting skills are not up to scratch: How do I get the current git branch in my variable?

Answer 1

To get the name of the current branch: git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD

So, to check:

if test "$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)" != my-branch; then
  echo Current branch is not my-branch >&2
  exit 1
fi

Answer 2

You can get the branch using git branch and a regex:

$gitBranch=$(git branch | sed -n -e 's/^\* \(.*\)/\1/p')

After that you just have to make your test.