Is there a way to get the git root directory in one command?

Question

Mercurial has a way of printing the root directory (that contains .hg) via

hg root

Is there something equivalent in git to get the director

Answer 1

In case anyone needs a POSIX compliant way of doing this, without needing git executable:

git-root:

#$1: Path to child directory
git_root_recurse_parent() {
    # Check if cwd is a git root directory
    if [ -d .git/objects -a -d .git/refs -a -f .git/HEAD ] ; then
        pwd
        return 0
    fi

    # Check if recursion should end (typically if cwd is /)
    if [ "${1}" = "$(pwd)" ] ; then
        return 1
    fi

    # Check parent directory in the same way
    local cwd=$(pwd)
    cd ..
    git_root_recurse_parent "${cwd}"
}

git_root_recurse_parent

---

If you just want the functionality as part of a script, remove the shebang, and replace the last git_root_recurse_parent line with:

git_root() {
    (git_root_recurse_parent)
}

Answer 2

Has --show-toplevel only recently been added to git rev-parse or why is nobody mentioning it?

From the git rev-parse man page:

   --show-toplevel
       Show the absolute path of the top-level directory.

Answer 3

I wanted to expand upon Daniel Brockman's excellent comment.

Defining git config --global alias.exec '!exec ' allows you to do things like git exec make because, as man git-config states:

If the alias expansion is prefixed with an exclamation point, it will be treated as a shell command. [...] Note that shell commands will be executed from the top-level directory of a repository, which may not necessarily be the current directory.

It's also handy to know that $GIT_PREFIX will be the path to the current directory relative to the top-level directory of a repository. But, knowing it is only half the battle™. Shell variable expansion makes it rather hard to use. So I suggest using bash -c like so:

git exec bash -c 'ls -l $GIT_PREFIX'

other commands include:

git exec pwd
git exec make

Answer 4

Just in case if you're feeding this path to the Git itself, use :/

# this adds the whole working tree from any directory in the repo
git add :/

# and is equal to
git add $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)

Answer 5

Had to solve this myself today. Solved it in C# as I needed it for a program, but I guess it can be esily rewritten. Consider this Public Domain.

public static string GetGitRoot (string file_path) {

    file_path = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName (file_path);

    while (file_path != null) {

        if (Directory.Exists (System.IO.Path.Combine (file_path, ".git")))
            return file_path;

        file_path = Directory.GetParent (file_path).FullName;

    }

    return null;

}

Answer 6

If you're already in the top-level or not in a git repository cd $(git rev-parse --show-cdup) will take you home (just cd). cd ./$(git rev-parse --show-cdup) is one way of fixing that.