To check if repo exists, if exists 0 is returned else 128 is returned
**git ls-remote --heads http://user:[email protected]:user/repo.git**
To check if branch exists in repo, if branch not found no output else one line is printed
**git ls-remote --heads http://user:[email protected]:user/repo.git branch**
To check if tag exists in repo, if branch not found no output else on line is printed
**git ls-remote --tags http://user:[email protected]:user/repo.git v7_3**
Return code in above 2 cases is 0 always whether branch/tag found or not
solved What is git equivalent of the following cvs command