Pointing to branches

HEAD is used to represent the current snapshot of a branch. For a new repository, Git will, by default, point HEAD to the main branch. Changing where HEAD is pointing to will update your active branch.

The ~(tilde) and ^(caret) symbols point to a position relative to a specific commit. The symbols are used with a commit reference, typically HEAD or a commit hash.

• ~ refers to ancestors (how many generations back depends on the number).
• HEAD~1 refers to the commit’s first parent.
• HEAD~2 refers to the commit’s first grandparent.
• ^ refers to parents of merge commits.
• HEAD^1 refers to the first parent of HEAD where head is a merge commit.
• HEAD^2 refers to the first grandparent of HEAD where head is a merge commit.

A commit can have two parents in a merge commit.