Get git current branch/tag name

Question

How can I get the current branch or tag name for my working copy? I have seen references that indicate rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD will give branch name, but this doesn't work if the checkout is of a tag, in which case it just returns 'HEAD'. I need to somehow get the tag name of these revisions.

To be clear, I want one of two possible names:

1. If the current checkout is the HEAD of a branch, I want the branch name
2. If it is a detached HEAD, I want the tag name (on the assumption there is a tag)

Solution 1

I think you want this:

git symbolic-ref -q --short HEAD || git describe --tags --exact-match

That will output the value of HEAD, if it's not detached, or emit the tag name, if it's an exact match. It'll show you an error otherwise.

Solution 2

This command can print name in this priority: tag > branch > commit

git describe --tags --exact-match 2> /dev/null \
  || git symbolic-ref -q --short HEAD \
  || git rev-parse --short HEAD

Solution 3

This command can print name in this priority: branch > tag > commit id

git symbolic-ref --short -q HEAD \
  || git describe --tags --exact-match 2> /dev/null \
  || git rev-parse --short HEAD

Merged @xiaohui-zhang's answer and @thisismydesign's comment. I keep coming back to this question every few months, and this is the answer I end up with, so I thought I'd post it.

Comments

[thisismydesign]

If a branch points to a tag and you do git checkout branch this command will return the tag. I think the correct order is branch -> tag as in the answer from @John Szakmeister which works fine in both cases (checking out branches and tags).

[Dewald Swanepoel]

I'm trying to work out under what circumstances this would return the tag name. I mean isnt every tag simply a tag on some branch (be it master or any other branch). This git command will always return the branch first, so why would it ever return the tag?

[user187557]

Branches refer to commits, and tags refer to commits. If a branch and a tag both refer to the currently-checked-out commit, then this will return the branch. If the currently-checked out commit has a tag, but no branch, this will return the tag. If the currently-checked-out commit has no branch or tag, then this will return the commit ID.