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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-14T00:28:00+00:00

I’m trying to see if a certain branch exists within a shell script. However,

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I’m trying to see if a certain branch exists within a shell script.

However, git-branch seems to modify its output when interpolated. (I don’t know the exact phenomenon or terminology here)

For example, I’m trying to get the array of branches:

$ git branch
  develop
* master

$ branches=`git branch`
$ echo $branches
develop compiler.sh HOSTNAME index.html master

$ echo `git branch`
develop compiler.sh HOSTNAME index.html master

A kind of ls-files seems to be getting in the way. How come? Is this Bash? Git? I’m confused.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The output of git branch contains the * character, which signifies your current branch:

    $ git branch
develop
*  master

    Running just echo * in your shell will print a glob of your working directory:

    compiler.sh HOSTNAME index.html

    So your original problem arises because, after expansion, you’re actually running echo develop * master.

    To avoid this directory-globbing behavior, you could just strong-quote branches during echo:

    $ branches=`git branch`
$ echo "$branches"
develop
*  master
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