Git command - Repository heads not listed while using -h switch with "HEAD" option

Question

There is a git repository in my LAN. I try to query Git to list all the HEAD references in the following way:

Method 1

Command

git ls-remote -h username@{ip-address}:/path/to/repo

Output

f0467f266dee55cd32f2ca6fa819814f367db899    HEAD

Method 2

Command

git ls-remote username@{ip-address}:/path/to/repo HEAD

Output

f0467f266dee55cd32f2ca6fa819814f367db899    HEAD

Method 3

Command

git ls-remote -h username@{ip-address}:/path/to/repo HEAD

When using the above command, the head reference which was listed in the above two methods is not listed.

Any idea on this?

Answer 1

I suspect this is because HEAD is a special kind of refs, it's not a head of a branch, it doesn't reside in refs/heads/ namespace. So when you ask git to list refs with both -h and HEAD git sees a contradiction and doesn't list any refs.