On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 12:49 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > >>> What's wrong with simply using 'HEAD' for scripting? >> >> When you want to display the current branch to the user, e.g. when >> scripting a shell prompt or similar use > > Wait. Even if a hypothetical version of Git understood @@ as "the > current branch", how would you use that notation, instead of HEAD, > to decide what to "display the current branch to the user"? > > You obviously will not be doing > > echo @@ > > You would be doing something around "git symbolic-ref" at the very > least, and wouldn't you be feeding HEAD to that symbolic-ref anyway > while doing so? > Hmm. You are right, I mis-understood the original question. Use of "git symbolic-ref" seems like the right thing if you need to obtain the current branch name, and there's no reason to not just use HEAD there. Thanks, Jake