Goal Delete all branches except for several exceptions. In my case: development, main
I found this command but it only applies to main.
git branch | grep -v "main" | xargs git branch -D
I thought you could do it like this:
git branch | grep -v "main|development" | xargs git branch -D
But that doesn't work.
Escape the Pipe in your pattern \|. Like that:
git branch | grep -v "branchName1\|branchName2\|branchName3" | xargs git branch -D
git branch | grep -v -E "branchName1|branchName2|branchName3" | xargs git branch -D
Short explanation of the parameters
-v or --invert-match The -v parameter returns all non-matching lines, which is important because you want to remove them.
-E or --extended-regexp Means that the pattern which you pass is extended regex which is used for the search. Then you can use the pipe to separate without escaping.
Basic regular expressions require you to escape the |, which is otherwise treated as a literal character, to indicate alternation.
git branch | grep -v "main\|development"
If your version of grep supports it, you can use extended regular expression, in which | is the alternation operator.
git branch | grep -Ev "main|development"