Checkout specific Git branch or tag using its name only
For some compatibility reasons I needed to checkout specific branch or tag in the Git repository using only it’s name (last part without refs/.../ prefix) from a bash script.
For Mercurial repositories it’s not a problem at all thanks to:
hg checkout $tagOrBranch
I haven’t found similar solution using git checkout, so as a workaround I’ve prepared the following bash script to do the job:
git fetch --all
if git show-ref | grep "refs/remotes/origin/$tagOrBranch"
then
echo "It looks like a branch"
git checkout -b $tagOrBranch
git pull origin $tagOrBranch
else
if git show-ref --tags | grep "refs/tags/$tagOrBranch\$"
then
echo "It looks like a tag"
git checkout tags/$branchOrTag
else
echo "No branch / tag '$branchOrTag' found"
exit 1
fi
fi