git branch list

git-branch-list

The current version of git branch --list mostly works, but it's slow and cumbersome. While this could easily be fixed in git itself, every patch that tries to improve the user interface is de facto rejected.

An external command git branch-list is the solution.

Advantages

Why is git branch-list better?

1. It provides useful information at all verbosity levels
2. It does not clutter the output with unhelpful characters
3. It provides a more consistent output
4. It sorts branches
5. It filters branches
6. It tracks branches in a simpler way
7. It's faster

Example

Offcial git branch --list

Say you have a master branch that tracks a remote branch, but it's not always up-to-date (we'll use Linux's repository).

In this case official git branch will show this:

* master

This doesn't provide much information. If you use the --verbose option, you get:

* master 9f4ad9e425a1 [behind 16592] Linux 5.12

OK, we are behind by 16592 commits, but behind what? We can guess from the commit title, but it's not really clear.

If we use --verbose --verbose we get:

* master 9f4ad9e425a1 [origin/master: behind 16592] Linux 5.12

Finally we have some useful information, but it took two levels of verbosity, and there's a lot of information that isn't typically useful.

Our git branch-list

On the other hand, with git branch-list:

* master origin/master

Boom! Right away we see the most useful information: master tracks origin/master.

Then, if we want to know when the branches are up-to-date, we use -t:

* master origin/master<

Do we really care if we are 16592 commits behind, as opposed to 14386 commits behind? No, all we care about is that we are beind, which the < symbol represents. This is the same information you get when you use __git_ps1 with GIT_PS1_SHOWUPSTREAM=auto.

If you want even more information you can specify the -v option:

* master [origin/master<] Linux 5.12

We get all the most useful information at all levels (who cares what the object id is?).

Convenience

You can get some of the advantages of git branch-list from the official git branch, whoever, you need to know specifically which options to enable.

For example, let's say you have several branches that update documentation prefixed with doc-. With the official git branch you could do something like:

git branch --list doc-*

This works, however, 1) it doesn't work unless you specify --list, and 2) you need to add the asterisk (*).

On the other hand with git branch-list:

git branch-list doc

You don't need any option, nor asterisk. It just works straightaway.

Another example; you can enable a useful sorting of branches with the following configuration:

[branch]
        sort = -committerdate

But with git branch-list you don't need to; it's sorted by default.

Performance

In order to test the performance I'll use a real repository: Linux. I create 100 branches at completely random points over the past 10 years.

After warming up the cache:

Official git branch --list --verbose

21.804 seconds
21.614 seconds
21.415 seconds

git branch-list

0.104 seconds
0.107 seconds
0.107 seconds

Is there even a question?

Conclusion

git branch-list is the same as git branch --list... But much better.

Installation

Copy the script anywhere in your $PATH and make it executable, or run make install which will install it by default to your ~/bin/ directory (make sure it's in your $PATH).