git alias for deleting branches by given pattern

Question

After working for a few weeks, I always accumulate a lot of branches, frequently called feature/* or daniel/*.

From time to time, I delete all my local branches running this command (windows):

git branch -d (git branch --list 'feature/*').trim()

After frequently forgetting this command, I'd like to create an alias for it (with a string argument) ideally like this:

git del 'feature/*'

How can I create this alias?

I was trying this:

[alias]

    del = '!set -eu; git branch -d (git branch --list "$1").trim()'

but it doesn't work and I ran out of ideas.

In my opinion this question answers the question for Bash at least. The only difference is that you ask for Git alias. — Guildenstern
– Guildenstern, Commented Sep 11, 2024 at 7:37

dani-vta · Accepted Answer · 2024-09-30 13:51:44Z

1

Instead of nesting commands, you could pipe them and retrieve the result of your git branch --list $1 to feed git branch -d with xargs -r.

To expand an alias with parameterized commands piped together, you could use the sh command and supply it with a string containing the command list.

Your alias could look like this

git config --local alias.del '!sh -c "set -eu | git branch --list $1 | xargs -r git branch -d"'

and be used in the following way

# deleting all branches starting with feature/
git del feature/*

# deleting all branches starting with daniele/
git del daniel/*

edited Sep 30, 2024 at 13:51

answered Sep 11, 2024 at 7:09

dani-vta

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