List branches of a git remote repo without cloning it

Question

I was wondering hows it would be possible to list all the branches of a remote Git repo with jgit but without cloning it.

While going through the jgit's javadoc, I found the ListBranchCommand but that only seem to work with an already opened Repository object. But I was not able to find how to create a Repository object over HTTP without cloning it in local.

Is it possible ? Thanks

Answer 1

There is the LsRemoteCommand to list the branches of a remote repository. To obtain the command, use either

Git.wrap( repo ).lsRemote()

or

Git.lsRemoteRepository()

The statically created LsRemoteCommand has its limitations. For certain transport protocols, a local repository is necessary to obtain configuration settings. Therefore I usually create an empty temporary local repository with Git.init() and then use the first approach.

If you want to avoid creating the extra repository, you can test with Transport.open() if it succeeds without a repository. It throws a NotSupportedException otherwise.

Answer 2

Ok, never mind, after hours searching for the answer, I find it right before asking it there...

So, the answer is in the CookBook :

Collection<Ref> refs = Git.lsRemoteRepository()
            .setHeads(true)
            .setTags(true)
            .setRemote(REMOTE_URL)
            .call();