git branch vs $(git branch)

Question

When I execute git branch on the command line I get a list of all the branches on a repo, however when I execute $(git branch) in a sub-shell, it first prints out a list of files in the top level folder in a repo before printing out the branch names. Why?

I'm basically trying to iterate over the branches using a for loop, but the listing of files breaks my script.

for i in $(git branch); do 
    echo $i
done

I learned that this is the better solution to this problem: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3846380/how-to-iterate-through-all-git-branches-using-bash-script — Andrew De Andrade, Jul 17 '14 at 21:36

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 17 '14 at 20:05

3

$ git branch
* master

Try echo * master in your shell and see what you get?

Hint: You'll get the list of files in the current directory from the shell glob expansion of *.

See DontReadLinesWithFor for more details.

answered Jul 17 '14 at 20:05

Etan Reisner

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 17 '14 at 20:04

Because your first branch (or, the checked out branch) has a * next to it, which is a shell wild card. This is being evaluated and expanded to the list of files in the current directory.

Try checking out a branch further down the list, you'll find the list of files moves to be inserted in the list next to the currently checked out branch, not at the top.

git branch vs $(git branch)

2 Answers2

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