Problem: I want a way of deleting all the local branches I have that do not have a remote. It's easy enough to pipe the names of the branches into a git branch -D {branch_name}
, but how do I get that list in the first place?
For example:
I create a new branch without a remote:
$ git co -b no_upstream
I list all my branches, and there's only one with a remote
$ git branch -a master * no_upstream remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master remotes/origin/master
What command can I run to get no_upstream
as an answer?
I can run git rev-parse --abbrev-ref --symbolic-full-name @{u}
and that will show that it has no remote:
$ git rev-parse --abbrev-ref --symbolic-full-name @{u} error: No upstream configured for branch 'no_upstream' error: No upstream configured for branch 'no_upstream' fatal: ambiguous argument '@{u}': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this: 'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'
But as this is an error, it won't let me use it or pipe it to other commands. I'm intending to use this as either a shell script alias'd to git-delete-unbranched
or maybe make a super simple Gem like git-branch-delete-orphans
Remove All Local Branches not on Remote First we get all remote branches using the git branch -r command. Next, we get the local branches not on the remote using the egrep -v -f /dev/fd/0 <(git branch -vv | grep origin) command, Finally we delete the branches using the xargs git branch -d command.
Git includes a grep command to search through commits to a repo as well as the local files in the repo directory: git grep. Sometimes it is useful to search for a string throughout an entire repo, e.g. to find where an error message is produced.
I recommend using git branch --format
to specify the exact output you want from the git branch
command. By doing that, you can pull out just the refname and the upstream, like this:
git branch --format "%(refname:short) %(upstream)"
It outputs the branches along with the remote branches if they exist, in the following format:
25-timeout-error-with-many-targets 31-target-suggestions refs/remotes/origin/31-target-suggestions 54-feedback-link refs/remotes/origin/54-feedback-link 65-digest-double-publish
Once you have this nicely formatted output, it's as easy as piping it through awk
to get your list:
git branch --format "%(refname:short) %(upstream)" | awk '{if (!$2) print $1;}'
Results in the following output:
25-timeout-error-with-many-targets 65-digest-double-publish
The awk
portion prints the first column if there is no second column.
Bonus: Create an alias
Make it easy to run by creating an alias in your global .gitconfig
file (or wherever):
[alias] local-branches = "!git branch --format '%(refname:short) %(upstream:short)' | awk '{if (!$2) print $1;}'"
Bonus: Remote Filtering
If for some reason you have multiple tracking remotes for different branches, it's easy enough to specify which remote you want to check against. Just add the remote name to the awk pattern. In my case, it's origin
so I can do this:
git branch --format "%(refname:short) %(upstream)" | awk '$2 !~/\/origin\// { print $1 }'
Important: The backslash needs to be escaped in the alias or else you will have an invalid gitconfig file.
The previous answer was functionally similar, but used the following as it's starting point. Over time, commenters have pointed out that a regex is unreliable due to the variance possible in a commit message, so I no longer recommend this method. But, here it is for reference:
I recently discovered git branch -vv
which is the "very verbose" version of the git branch
command.
It outputs the branches along with the remote branches if they exist, in the following format:
25-timeout-error-with-many-targets 206a5fa WIP: batch insert 31-target-suggestions f5bdce6 [origin/31-target-suggestions] Create target suggestion for team and list on save * 54-feedback-link b98e97c [origin/54-feedback-link] WIP: Feedback link in mail 65-digest-double-publish 2de4150 WIP: publishing-state
Once you have this nicely formatted output, it's as easy as piping it through cut
and awk
to get your list:
git branch -vv | cut -c 3- | awk '$3 !~/\[/ { print $1 }'
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