I'd like to clean up my local repository, which has a ton of old branches: for example 3.2, 3.2.1, 3.2.2, etc.
I was hoping for a sneaky way to remove a lot of them at once. Since they mostly follow a dot release convention, I thought maybe there was a shortcut to say:
git branch -D 3.2.* and kill all 3.2.x branches.
I tried that command and it, of course, didn't work.
Not with that syntax. But you can do it like this:
git branch -D 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 Basically, git branch will delete multiple branch for you with a single invocation. Unfortunately it doesn't do branch name completion. Although, in bash, you can do:
git branch -D `git branch | grep -E '^3\.2\..*'` git branch | cut -c3- | egrep "^3.2" | xargs git branch -D ^ ^ ^ ^ | | | |--- create arguments | | | from standard input | | | | | |---your regexp | | | |--- skip asterisk |--- list all local branches EDIT:
git for-each-ref --format="%(refname:short)" refs/heads/3.2\* | xargs git branch -D ... or the xargs-free:
git branch -D `git for-each-ref --format="%(refname:short)" refs/heads/3.2\*` Well, in the worst case, you could use:
git branch | grep '3\.2' | xargs git branch -d Use
git for-each-ref --format='%(refname:short)' 'refs/heads/3.2.*' | xargs git branch -D Recently, I was looking for solution of same problem, finally i found one answer and it is working very well:
This solution is awesome and if you want full explanation of each command and how it is working, its given here.
You can use git branch --list to list the eligible branches
git branch --list '3.2.*' Using git branch -D/-d to remove the eligible branches. One liner example:
git branch -d `git branch --list '3.2.*'` I made a small function that might be useful based off of the answer provided by @gawi (above).
removeBranchesWithPrefix() { git for-each-ref --format="%(refname:short)" refs/heads/$1\* | xargs git branch -d } Add that to your .bash_profile and restart your terminal. Then you can call from command-line like this:
removeBranchesWithPrefix somePrefix Note
I have it currently setup for a soft delete, which means it won't delete the branches unless they've already been merged. If you like to live on the edge, change -d to -D and it will delete everything with the prefix regardless!
If you're not limited to using the git command prompt, then you can always run git gui and use the Branch->Delete menu item. Select all the branches you want to delete and let it rip.
You might like this little item... It pulls the list and asks for confirmation of each item before finally deleting all selections...
git branch -d `git for-each-ref --format="%(refname:short)" refs/heads/\* | while read -r line; do read -p "remove branch: $line (y/N)?" answer /tty; case "$answer" in y|Y) echo "$line";; esac; done` Use -D to force deletions (like usual).
For readability, here is that broken up line by line...
git branch -d `git for-each-ref --format="%(refname:short)" refs/heads/\* | while read -r line; do read -p "remove branch: $line (y/N)?" answer /tty; case "$answer" in y|Y) echo "$line";; esac; done` here is the xargs approach...
git for-each-ref --format="%(refname:short)" refs/heads/\* | while read -r line; do read -p "remove branch: $line (y/N)?" answer /tty; case "$answer" in y|Y) echo "$line";; esac; done | xargs git branch -D finally, I like to have this in my .bashrc
alias gitselect='git for-each-ref --format="%(refname:short)" refs/heads/\* | while read -r line; do read -p "select branch: $line (y/N)?" answer /tty; case "$answer" in y|Y) echo "$line";; esac; done' That way I can just say
gitSelect | xargs git branch -D. As in Git all the branches are nothing by references to the git repo, why don't you just delete the branches going to .git/ref and then if anything is left out which is not interesting in the repository will automatically be garbage collected so you don't need to bother.
I you're on windows, you can use powershell to do this:
git branch | grep 'feature/*' |% { git branch -D $_.trim() } replace feature/* with any pattern you like.
You can remove all the branches removing all the unnecessary refs:
rm .git/refs/heads/3.2.*