How to check if remote branch exists on a given remote repository?

Question

I need to do a subtree merge for a specific branch, if it exists on a given remote repository. The problem is that the remote repository is not checked out locally, so I can

Answer 1

If your branch names are very specific, you might not need to use grep for simple branch name matching:

git ls-remote --heads $(git remote | head -1) "*${BRANCH_NAME}*" | \
    cut -d$'\t' -f2 | \
    sed 's,refs/heads/,,' | \
    wc -l

which works for

BRANCH=master
BRANCH=mas
BRANCH=NonExistingBranch (returns 0)
BRANCH=ISSUE-123

We use unique issue id as branch names and it works fine.