Enhance the way you list Git branches with these 3 options

This post is part of my "Shorts" series, where each post is concise and hyper-focused on a single concept.

As a developer, you may already be aware of the git branch command which is used to list all the branches in your repository. The sample output of a git branch command looks like this:

* color-hidden-files
  main
  show-abs-path-xargs
  size-in-bytes

Here, the asterisk (*) sign represents the current branch, i.e., the branch that the HEAD pointer points to.

In this short post, I intend to list some of the most used command line flags that can be used with the git branch command. These flags will help you:

1. View the last commit in each branch
2. List only merged/non-merged branches

View the last commit in each branch

If you use the --verbose (-v) flag, you can view the last commit in each branch. The sample output of running -v flag looks like this:

* color-hidden-files  305e248 refactor: split into two methods
  main                28c188b Merge pull request #594 from ayushpoddar/show-abs-path-xargs
  show-abs-path-xargs 44c370b Revert "version bump"
  size-in-bytes       5f3b880 spec fix: not more than 3 lines in the spec output

List only merged branches

If you want to see only those branches which have been merged into the current branch, then you need to use the --merged command line flag. The output of running the command with the --merged flag is similar to the output of a simple git branch command. However, it filters out all the branches whose work is pending to be merged into the current branch.

You can delete the branches whose commits have been merged into the current branch because the work done in those branches is available in the current branch.

List only non-merged branches

Similar to above, if you want to list only those branches that have some commits which are not part of the current branch, then you can use the --no-merged command line flag.

References

• https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Branch-Management