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git rev-parse --show-toplevel
If you want to replicate the Mercurial command more directly, you can create an alias:
git config --global alias.root 'rev-parse --show-toplevel'
and now git root will function just as hg root.
Note: In a submodule this will display the root directory of the submodule and not the parent repository. If you are using Git >=2.13 or above, there is a way that submodules can show the superproject's root directory. If your git is older than that, see this other answer.
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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.
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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.
So, on UNIX you can do:
git config --global --add alias.root '!pwd'
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How about "git rev-parse --git-dir" ?
F:\prog\git\test\copyMerge\dirWithConflicts>git rev-parse --git-dir
F:/prog/git/test/copyMerge/.git
The --git-dir option seems to work.
It does work even in a bare repository, while git rev-parse --show-toplevel would trigger (in said bare repository) a "fatal: this operation must be run in a work tree".
From git rev-parse manual page:
--git-dir
Show $GIT_DIR if defined else show the path to the .git directory.
You can see it in action in this git setup-sh script.
If you are in a submodule folder, with Git >=2.13, use:
git rev-parse --show-superproject-working-tree
If you are using git rev-parse --show-toplevel, make sure it is with Git 2.25+ (Q1 2020).
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to do the job, simply configure your git by using
git config --global alias.root "rev-parse --show-toplevel"
and then you might want to add the following to your ~/.bashrc:
alias cdroot='cd $(git root)'
so that you can just use cdroot to go to the top of your repo.
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Short solutions that work with submodules, in hooks, and inside the .git directory
Here's the short answer that most will want:
r=$(git rev-parse --git-dir) && r=$(cd "$r" && pwd)/ && echo "${r%%/.git/*}"
This will work anywhere in a git working tree (including inside the .git directory), but assumes that repository directory(s) are called .git (which is the default). With submodules, this will go to the root of the outermost containing repository.
If you want to get to the root of the current submodule use:
echo $(r=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel) && ([[ -n $r ]] && echo "$r" || (cd $(git rev-parse --git-dir)/.. && pwd) ))
To easily execute a command in your submodule root, under [alias] in your .gitconfig, add:
sh = "!f() { root=$(pwd)/ && cd ${root%%/.git/*} && git rev-parse && exec \"$@\"; }; f"
This allows you to easily do things like git sh ag <string>
Robust solution that supports differently named or external .git or $GIT_DIR directories.
Note that $GIT_DIR may point somewhere external (and not be called .git), hence the need for further checking.
Put this in your .bashrc:
# Print the name of the git working tree's root directory
function git_root() {
local root first_commit
# git displays its own error if not in a repository
root=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel) || return
if [[ -n $root ]]; then
echo $root
return
elif [[ $(git rev-parse --is-inside-git-dir) = true ]]; then
# We're inside the .git directory
# Store the commit id of the first commit to compare later
# It's possible that $GIT_DIR points somewhere not inside the repo
first_commit=$(git rev-list --parents HEAD | tail -1) ||
echo "$0: Can't get initial commit" 2>&1 && false && return
root=$(git rev-parse --git-dir)/.. &&
# subshell so we don't change the user's working directory
( cd "$root" &&
if [[ $(git rev-list --parents HEAD | tail -1) = $first_commit ]]; then
echo "$FUNCNAME: git directory is not inside its repository" 2>&1
false
echo "$FUNCNAME: Can't determine repository root" 2>&1
false
# Change working directory to git repository root
function cd_git_root() {
local root
root=$(git_root) || return 1 # git_root will print any errors
cd "$root"
Execute it by typing git_root (after restarting your shell: exec bash)
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As others have noted, the core of the solution is to use git rev-parse --show-cdup. However, there are a few of edge cases to address:
When the cwd already is the root of the working tree, the command yields an empty string.
Actually it produces an empty line, but command substitution strip off the trailing line break. The final result is an empty string.
Most answers suggest prepending the output with ./ so that an empty output becomes "./" before it is fed to cd.
When GIT_WORK_TREE is set to a location that is not the parent of the cwd, the output may be an absolute pathname.
Prepending ./ is wrong in this situation. If a ./ is prepended to an absolute path, it becomes a relative path (and they only refer to the same location if the cwd is the root directory of the system).
The output may contain whitespace.
This really only applies in the second case, but it has an easy fix: use double quotes around the command substitution (and any subsequent uses of the value).
As other answers have noted, we can do cd "./$(git rev-parse --show-cdup)", but this breaks in the second edge case (and the third edge case if we leave off the double quotes).
Many shells treat cd "" as a no-op, so for those shells we could do cd "$(git rev-parse --show-cdup)" (the double quotes protect the empty string as an argument in the first edge case, and preserve whitespace in the third edge case). POSIX says the result of cd "" is unspecified, so it may be best to avoid making this assumption.
A solution that works in all of the above cases requires a test of some sort. Done explicitly, it might look like this:
cdup="$(git rev-parse --show-cdup)" && test -n "$cdup" && cd "$cdup"
No cd is done for the first edge case.
If it is acceptable to run cd . for the first edge case, then the conditional can be done in the expansion of the parameter:
cdup="$(git rev-parse --show-cdup)" && cd "${cdup:-.}"
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To calculate the absolute path of the current git root directory, say for use in a shell script, use this combination of readlink and git rev-parse:
gitroot=$(readlink -f ./$(git rev-parse --show-cdup))
git-rev-parse --show-cdup gives you the right number of ".."s to get
to the root from your cwd, or the empty string if you are at the root.
Then prepend "./" to deal with the empty string case and use
readlink -f to translate to a full path.
You could also create a git-root command in your PATH as a shell script to apply this technique:
cat > ~/bin/git-root << EOF
#!/bin/sh -e
cdup=$(git rev-parse --show-cdup)
exec readlink -f ./$cdup
chmod 755 ~/bin/git-root
(The above can be pasted into a terminal to create git-root and set execute bits; the actual script is in lines 2, 3 and 4.)
And then you'd be able to run git root to get the root of your current tree.
Note that in the shell script, use "-e" to cause the shell to exit if the rev-parse fails so that you can properly get the exit status and error message if you are not in a git directory.
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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 $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
To amend the "git config" answer just a bit:
git config --global --add alias.root '!pwd -P'
and get the path cleaned up. Very nice.
If you're looking for a good alias to do this plus not blow up cd if you aren't in a git dir:
alias ..g='git rev-parse && cd "$(git rev-parse --show-cdup)"'
This shell alias works whether you are in a git subdir, or at the top level:
alias gr='[ ! -z `git rev-parse --show-toplevel` ] && cd `git rev-parse --show-toplevel || pwd`'
updated to use modern syntax instead of backticks:
alias gr='[ ! -z $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel) ] && cd $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel || pwd)'
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Here is a script that I've written that handles both cases: 1) repository with a workspace, 2) bare repository.
https://gist.github.com/jdsumsion/6282953
git-root (executable file in your path):
#!/bin/bash
GIT_DIR=`git rev-parse --git-dir` &&
if [ `basename $GIT_DIR` = ".git" ]; then
# handle normal git repos (with a .git dir)
cd $GIT_DIR/..
# handle bare git repos (the repo IS a xxx.git dir)
cd $GIT_DIR
Hopefully this is helpful.
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Since Git 2.13.0, it supports a new option to show the path of the root project, which works even when being used from inside a submodule:
git rev-parse --show-superproject-working-tree
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Pre-Configured Shell Aliases in Shell Frameworks
If you use a shell framework, there might already be a shell alias available:
$ grt in oh-my-zsh (68k) (cd $(git rev-parse --show-toplevel || echo "."))
$ git-root in prezto (8.8k) (displays the path to the working tree root)
$ g.. zimfw (1k) (changes the current directory to the top level of the working tree.)
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
In case anyone needs a POSIX compliant way of doing this, without needing git executable:
git-root:
#$1: Path to child directory
git_root_recurse_parent() {
# Check if cwd is a git root directory
if [ -d .git/objects -a -d .git/refs -a -f .git/HEAD ] ; then
return 0
# Check if recursion should end (typically if cwd is /)
if [ "${1}" = "$(pwd)" ] ; then
return 1
# Check parent directory in the same way
local cwd=$(pwd)
cd ..
git_root_recurse_parent "${cwd}"
git_root_recurse_parent
If you just want the functionality as part of a script, remove the shebang, and replace the last git_root_recurse_parent line with:
git_root() {
(git_root_recurse_parent)
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When in a Git worktree, --git-dir gets the path of the worktree metadata inside the .git folder. To get the path of the actual .git folder where hooks can be installed, use --git-common-dir instead:
/Projects/mywork$ git rev-parse --git-dir
/Projects/app/.git/worktrees/mywork
/Projects/mywork$ git rev-parse --git-common-dir
/Projects/app/.git
EDIT: For hooks, there is a better solution:
/Projects/mywork$ git rev-parse --git-path hooks
/Projects/app/.git/hooks
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;
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