gergelypolonkai-web-jekyll/_posts/2014-07-18-list-git-branches-and-their-remote-tracking-branches-side-by-side.markdown

layout	title	date	tags	permalink	published	author
post	List Git branches and their remote tracking branches side by side	2014-07-18 21:46:45+00:00	git	/blog/2014/7/18/list-git-branches-and-their-remote-tracking-branches-side-by-side	true	name email Gergely Polonkai gergely@polonkai.eu

I had a hard time following my own branches in a project. They got pretty numerous, and I wasn’t sure if I pushed them to origin at all. git branch -a can list all the branches, including remote ones, but, as my list grew too big, it was impossible to follow it any more.

Thus, I have created a small script called git-branches-with-remotes, which does the work for me. Its only requirements are git (of course), and the column command, which is pretty obviously present on every POSIX compliant systems (even OSX).

{% highlight sh %} #! /bin/sh

COLUMN=which column 2> /dev/null if test -z $COLUMN then echo "`column' is not found in PATH. Cannot continue." exit 1 fi

current_branch=git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD

for branch in $(git for-each-ref --shell --format='%(refname)' refs/heads | sed -e s/^'refs\/heads\///-e s/'$//) do remote=git config branch.$branch.remote merge=git config branch.$branch.merge | sed -e 's/^refs\/heads\///'

[ x"$current_branch" == x"$branch" ] && echo -n '*'

echo -n "$branch"

if ! test -z $merge
then
    echo -en "\t"
    echo -n $remote
    echo -n /
    echo -n $merge
fi

echo

done | $COLUMN -t {% endhighlight %}

I just put it in my path, and git branches-with-remotes does the work!

Edit (16 August): I have added some code to mark the current branch (if any) with an asterisk. Also, I have put this script in a gist.

Edit (26 February, 2015): It turns out that git branch -vv shows the same information and some more: it also shows if the branches are diverged, and the first line of the last commit’s message.