ORIG_HEAD, FETCH_HEAD, MERGE_HEAD etc

Question

There\'s a lot of useful git references (what is the exact name for this?), e.g. HEAD, ORIG_HEAD, FETCH_HEAD, MERGE_HEAD,

Answer 1

HEAD: The current ref that you’re looking at. In most cases it’s probably refs/heads/master

FETCH_HEAD: The SHAs of branch/remote heads that were updated during the last git fetch

ORIG_HEAD: When doing a merge, this is the SHA of the branch you’re merging into.

MERGE_HEAD: When doing a merge, this is the SHA of the branch you’re merging from.

CHERRY_PICK_HEAD: When doing a cherry-pick, this is the SHA of the commit which you are cherry-picking.

The complete list of these refs can be found by cloning git sources:

git clone https://github.com/git/git.git

and grepping the _HEAD" string in .c files. They are dispersed all over the place, but still can be easily found.

P.S.

git help revisions does not show the list of all possible named refs.