How to retrieve the hash for the current commit in Git

Question

I would like to retain  for now  the ability to link Git changesets to workitems stored in TFS  I already wrote a tool  using a hook from Git  in which I can inject workitem identifiers into the message of a Git changeset  I would also like to store the hash of the Git commit in a custom TFS workitem field  This way I can examine a workitem in TFS and see what Git changesets are associated with the workitem  How can I easily retrieve the hash from the current commit from Git

User · Answer

Here is another direct-access implementation:

head="$(cat ".git/HEAD")"
while [ "$head" != "${head#ref: }" ]; do
  head="$(cat ".git/${head#ref: }")"
done

This also works over http which is useful for local package archives (I know: for public web sites it's not recommended to make the .git directory accessable):

head="$(curl -s "$baseurl/.git/HEAD")"
while [ "$head" != "${head#ref: }" ]; do
  head="$(curl -s "$baseurl/.git/${head#ref: }")"
done

User · Answer

For completeness  since no-one has suggested it yet    git refs heads master is a file that contains only one line  the hash of the latest commit on master   So you could just read it from there   Or  as as command   cat  git refs heads master     Update   Note that git now supports storing some head refs in the pack-ref file instead of as a file in the  refs heads  folder   https   www kernel org pub software scm git docs git-pack-refs html

User · Answer

I needed something a little more different  display the full sha1 of the commit  but append an asterisk to the end if the working directory is not clean  Unless I wanted to use multiple commands  none of the options in the previous answers work   Here is the one liner that does  git describe --always --abbrev 0 --match  NOT A TAG  --dirty     Result  f5366ccb21588c0d7a5f7d9fa1d3f85e9f9d1ffe   Explanation  describes  using annotated tags  the current commit  but only with tags containing  NOT A TAG   Since tags cannot have spaces  this never matches a tag and since we want to show a result --always  the command falls back displaying the full  --abbrev 0  sha1 of the commit and it appends an asterisk if the working directory is --dirty   If you don t want to append the asterisk  this works like all the other commands in the previous answers  git describe --always --abbrev 0 --match  NOT A TAG  Result  f5366ccb21588c0d7a5f7d9fa1d3f85e9f9d1ffe

User · Answer

Another one  using git log   git log -1 --format   H    It s very similar to the of  outofculture though a bit shorter

User · Answer

in your home-dir  in file    gitconfig   add the following   alias  sha   rev-parse HEAD   then you will have an easier command to remember      git sha 59fbfdbadb43ad0b6154c982c997041e9e53b600

User · Answer

There s always git describe as well  By default it gives you --  john eleanor  dev shm mpd ncmpc pkg  master   git describe --always release-0 19-11-g7a68a75

User · Answer

If you want the super-hacky way to do it   cat  git  cat  git HEAD   cut -d    -f 2    Basically  git stores the location of HEAD in  git HEAD  in the form ref   path from  git    This command reads that out  slices off the  ref     and reads out whatever file it pointed to   This  of course  will fail in detached-head mode  as HEAD won t be  ref       but the hash itself - but you know  I don t think you expect that much smarts in your bash one-liners   If you don t think semicolons are cheating  though     HASH  ref  HEAD   while     HASH    ref        do HASH    cat   git   echo  HASH   cut -d    -f 2      done  echo  HASH

User · Answer

If you only want the shortened commit hash  git log --pretty format   h  -n 1  Furthermore  using  H is another way to get the long commit hash  and simply -1 can be used in place of -n 1

User · Answer

If you need to store the hash in a variable during a script  you can use last commit   git rev-parse HEAD    Or  if you only want the first 10 characters  like github com does  last commit   git rev-parse --short 10 HEAD

User · Answer

The most succinct way I know   git show --pretty  h    If you want a specific number of digits of the hash you can add   --abbrev n

User · Answer

Here is one-liner in Bash shell using direct read from git files    head     lt  git HEAD    cat  git   head 1      You need to run above command in your git root folder   This method can be useful when you ve repository files  but git command has been not installed   If won t work  check in  git refs heads folder what kind of heads do you have present

User · Answer

Here is another way of doing it with     git log   grep -o   w  8       head -n 1

User · Answer

Use git rev-list --max-count 1 HEAD

User · Answer

git show-ref --head --hash head   If you re going for speed though  the approach mentioned by Deestan  cat  git refs heads  lt branch-name gt    is significantly faster than any other method listed here so far

User · Answer

To turn arbitrary extended object reference into SHA-1  use simply git-rev-parse  for example git rev-parse HEAD  or git rev-parse --verify HEAD  You can also retrieve the short version like this git rev-parse --short HEAD  Sidenote  If you want to turn references  branches and tags  into SHA-1  there is git show-ref and git for-each-ref

User · Answer

Perhaps you want an alias so you don t have to remember all the nifty details  After doing one of the below steps  you will be able to simply type     git lastcommit 49c03fc679ab11534e1b4b35687b1225c365c630   Following up on the accepted answer  here are two ways to set this up   1  Teach git the explicit way by editing the global config  my original answer       open the git config editor    git config --global --edit    in the alias section  add        alias     lastcommit   rev-parse HEAD        2  Or if you like a shortcut to teach git a shortcut  as recently commented by Adrien     git config --global alias lastcommit  rev-parse HEAD    From here on  use git lastcommit to show the last commit s hash

User · Answer

To get the full SHA     git rev-parse HEAD cbf1b9a1be984a9f61b79a05f23b19f66d533537   To get the shortened version     git rev-parse --short HEAD cbf1b9a

User · Answer

Commit hash  git show -s --format  H   Abbreviated commit hash  git show -s --format  h   Click here for more git show examples

User · Answer

git rev-parse HEAD does the trick  If you need to store it to checkout back later than saving actual branch if any may be preferable  cat  git HEAD  Example output  ref  refs heads master  Parse it  cat  git HEAD   sed  quot s                1 g quot    If you have Windows then you may consider using wsl exe  wsl cat  git HEAD   wsl sed  quot s                1 g quot   Output  refs heads master  This value may be used to git checkout later but it becomes pointing to its SHA  To make it to point to the actual current branch by its name do  wsl cat  git HEAD   wsl sed  quot s                1 g quot    wsl sed  quot s  refs    g quot     wsl sed  quot s  heads    g quot   Output  master

User · Answer

On git bash  simply run   git log -1  you will see  these lines following your command   commit d25c95d88a5e8b7e15ba6c925a1631a5357095db     info about your head   d25c95d88a5e8b7e15ba6c925a1631a5357095db  is your SHA for last commit

[git] How to retrieve the hash for the current commit in Git?

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