Delete a branch starting with a hyphen

Question

I managed to create a branch in git called '-f'

e.g.

$ git branch
* (no branch)
   -f

How do I delete the dang thing? git branch -d -f won't work, nor will git branch -d '-f' or even git branch -d -f -f

possible duplicate of [Deleting a badly named git branch](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1192180/deleting-a-badly-named-git-branch) — Josh Lee, Apr 19 '11 at 03:45

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 19 '11 at 03:43

17

git branch -d -- -f

The -- symbol in general will stop parsing of command line options with many Linux tools.

Another way is

git update-ref -d refs/heads/-f

but git-update-ref is rather dangerous.

answered Apr 19 '11 at 03:43

Josh Lee

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score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 19 '11 at 03:43

4

Not sure if this will work, but a -- argument in Unix/Linux-style commands often tells the command that you're done passing options, and now you're passing real arguments:

git branch -d -- '-f'

answered Apr 19 '11 at 03:43

Andy White

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The quotes around `-f` are superfluous. – Aristotle Pagaltzis Apr 19 '11 at 09:23
How about 2 dashes? :). I used a GUI tool to take care of it for now. – XMAN Oct 19 '18 at 23:32

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 09 '13 at 07:28

I foolishly named a branch starting with a hyphen, and then checked out master. I didn't want to delete my branch, I had work in it.

Neither of these worked:

git checkout -dumb-name

git checkout -- -dumb-name

"s, 's and \s didn't help either.

This worked: go into your working copy's .git/refs/heads, find the filename "-dumb-name" (or whatever) and get the hash of the branch. Then:

git checkout {hash}
git checkout -b brilliant-name
git branch -d -- -dumb-name

Delete a branch starting with a hyphen

3 Answers3

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