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

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2025 11:09:06 +0900

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.