Subject: Re: Why git branch --show-current ignores -v?

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2025 11:11:49 +0900

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> Sergey Organov <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> It looks useful and natural for "git branch --show-current -v[v]" to
>> verbosely describe current branch, similar to what --list does. Is there
>> sound reason why -v is not supported by --show-current?
>
> The "--show-current" feature was invented merely for those who
> somehow found it ugly to use "git symbolic-ref HEAD" when a user
> wants to learn what the current branch was.  If I have to guess,
> nobody thought about it as a way to get the same output as "--list"
> but restricted to the single current branch.  Hence nobody felt the
> need to support any option that the "--list" operation supported,
> including "-v".  IOW, nobody shared your "It looks useful" so far,
> especially among the people who knew where the "--show-current"
> option came from.
>
> I do not think anybody terribly objects if somebody teaches "-v" to
> make "git branch --show-current" more verbose, and other "--list"
> operations in general, but I suspect that the exact contents in the
> verbose output may have to be different from that of "--list".  For
> one thing, as "--show-current" limits its output to the current
> branch, the two-place indent "git branch --list" gives its output is
> not there, and "-v" would probably not want to add it.

Forgot to say something much more important.  

Commands should complain when users give them input that they do not
understand.  If "git branch --show-current -v" silently eats "-v", I
would say it is a bug.

Unless we define that the current output is already verbose, that
is.

Thanks.