How to tell which local branch is tracking which remote branch in Git?
Using the example of my copy of Puppet checked out from the upstream Git repository on Github.com...
$ git remote show origin
* remote origin
Fetch URL: git://github.com/reductivelabs/puppet.git
Push URL: git://github.com/reductivelabs/puppet.git
HEAD branch: master
Remote branches:
0.24.x tracked
0.25.x tracked
2.6.x tracked
master tracked
next tracked
primordial-ooze tracked
reins-on-a-horse tracked
testing tracked
testing-17-march tracked
testing-18-march tracked
testing-2-april tracked
testing-2-april-midday tracked
testing-20-march tracked
testing-21-march tracked
testing-24-march tracked
testing-26-march tracked
testing-29-march tracked
testing-31-march tracked
testing-5-april tracked
testing-9-april tracked
testing4268 tracked
Local branch configured for 'git pull':
master merges with remote master
Local ref configured for 'git push':
master pushes to master (up to date)
Then if I were to execute the following:
$ git checkout -b local_2.6 -t origin/2.6.x
Branch local_2.6 set up to track remote branch 2.6.x from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'local_2.6'
And finally re-run the git remote show origin
command again I will then see the following down near the bottom:
Local branches configured for 'git pull':
local_2.6 merges with remote 2.6.x
master merges with remote master
For all branches:
git branch -avv
For local branches only:
git branch -lvv
For remote branches only:
git branch -rvv
shows you all branches as well as the name of the upstream branch.
Jeremy Bouse illustrates how git remote show
displays tracking information. That should be sufficient if you only want the information for human consumption.
If you plan on using the information in an automated context (e.g. a script) you should use the lower-level (“plumbing”) git for-each-ref
instead.
% git remote show origin
* remote origin
⋮
Local branches configured for 'git pull':
master merges with remote master
pu merges with remote pu
⋮
% git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short) <- %(upstream:short)' refs/heads
master <- origin/master
pu <- origin/pu
The git for-each-ref
learned the %(upstream)
token in Git 1.6.3. With earlier versions of Git you will have to extract the tracking information with git config branch.<name>.remote
and git config branch.<name>.merge
(probably using git for-each-ref
to build the commands for each local branch name).