Is there a better way to find out if a local git branch exists?

git-branch git
Manoj Govindan picture Manoj Govindan · Mar 2, 2011 · Viewed 82.3k times · Source

I am using the following command to find out if a local git branch with branch-name exists in my repository. Is this correct? Is there a better way?

Please note that I am doing this inside a script. For this reason I'd like to use plumbing commands if possible. 

git show-ref --verify --quiet refs/heads/<branch-name>
# $? == 0 means local branch with <branch-name> exists.

Answer

jhuynh picture jhuynh · Feb 28, 2015

When I search for 'git check if branch exists' on a search engine, this page is the first one I see.

I get what I want, but I'd like to provide a updated answer since the original post was from 2011.

git rev-parse --verify <branch_name>

This is essentially the same as the accepted answer, but you don't need type in "refs/heads/"

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