I need to delete old and unmaintained branches from our remote repository. I'm trying to find a way with which to list the remote branches by their last modified date, and I can't.
Is there an easy way to list remote branches this way?
commandlinefu has 2 interesting propositions:
for k in `git branch | perl -pe s/^..//`; do echo -e `git show --pretty=format:"%Cgreen%ci %Cblue%cr%Creset" $k -- | head -n 1`\\t$k; done | sort -r
or:
for k in `git branch | sed s/^..//`; do echo -e `git log -1 --pretty=format:"%Cgreen%ci %Cblue%cr%Creset" $k --`\\t"$k";done | sort
That is for local branches, in a Unix syntax. Using git branch -r
, you can similarly show remote branches:
for k in `git branch -r | perl -pe 's/^..(.*?)( ->.*)?$/\1/'`; do echo -e `git show --pretty=format:"%Cgreen%ci %Cblue%cr%Creset" $k -- | head -n 1`\\t$k; done | sort -r
Michael Forrest mentions in the comments that zsh requires escapes for the sed
expression:
for k in git branch | perl -pe s\/\^\.\.\/\/; do echo -e git show --pretty=format:"%Cgreen%ci %Cblue%cr%Creset" $k -- | head -n 1\\t$k; done | sort -r
kontinuity adds in the comments:
If you want to add it your zshrc the following escape is needed.
alias gbage='for k in `git branch -r | perl -pe '\''s/^..(.*?)( ->.*)?$/\1/'\''`; do echo -e `git show --pretty=format:"%Cgreen%ci %Cblue%cr%Creset" $k -- | head -n 1`\\t$k; done | sort -r'
In multiple lines:
alias gbage='for k in `git branch -r | \
perl -pe '\''s/^..(.*?)( ->.*)?$/\1/'\''`; \
do echo -e `git show --pretty=format:"%Cgreen%ci %Cblue%cr%Creset" $k -- | \
head -n 1`\\t$k; done | sort -r'
Note: n8tr's answer, based on git for-each-ref refs/heads
is cleaner. And faster.
See also "Name only option for git branch --list
?"
More generally, tripleee reminds us in the comments:
- Prefer modern
$(command substitution)
syntax over obsolescent backtick syntax.
(I illustrated that point in 2014 with "What is the difference between $(command)
and `command`
in shell programming?")
- Don't read lines with
for
.- Probably switch to
git for-each-ref refs/remote
to get remote branch names in machine-readable format