diff --git a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
index b4e6f82c66..e0e44bdf75 100644
--- a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
+++ b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
@@ -159,98 +159,6 @@ __git_dequote ()
 	done
 }
 
-# The following function is based on code from:
-#
-#   bash_completion - programmable completion functions for bash 3.2+
-#
-#   Copyright © 2006-2008, Ian Macdonald <ian@caliban.org>
-#             © 2009-2010, Bash Completion Maintainers
-#                     <bash-completion-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
-#
-#   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
-#   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-#   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
-#   any later version.
-#
-#   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
-#   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
-#   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
-#   GNU General Public License for more details.
-#
-#   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-#   along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
-#
-#   The latest version of this software can be obtained here:
-#
-#   http://bash-completion.alioth.debian.org/
-#
-#   RELEASE: 2.x
-
-# This function reorganizes the words on the command line to be processed by
-# the rest of the script.
-#
-# This is roughly equivalent to going back in time and setting
-# COMP_WORDBREAKS to exclude '=' and ':'.  The intent is to
-# make option types like --date=<type> and <rev>:<path> easy to
-# recognize by treating each shell word as a single token.
-#
-# It is best not to set COMP_WORDBREAKS directly because the value is
-# shared with other completion scripts.  By the time the completion
-# function gets called, COMP_WORDS has already been populated so local
-# changes to COMP_WORDBREAKS have no effect.
-
-if ! type _get_comp_words_by_ref >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-_get_comp_words_by_ref ()
-{
-	local exclude i j first
-
-	# Which word separators to exclude?
-	exclude="${COMP_WORDBREAKS//[^=:]}"
-	cword=$COMP_CWORD
-	if [ -n "$exclude" ]; then
-		# List of word completion separators has shrunk;
-		# re-assemble words to complete.
-		for ((i=0, j=0; i < ${#COMP_WORDS[@]}; i++, j++)); do
-			# Append each nonempty word consisting of just
-			# word separator characters to the current word.
-			first=t
-			while
-				[ $i -gt 0 ] &&
-				[ -n "${COMP_WORDS[$i]}" ] &&
-				# word consists of excluded word separators
-				[ "${COMP_WORDS[$i]//[^$exclude]}" = "${COMP_WORDS[$i]}" ]
-			do
-				# Attach to the previous token,
-				# unless the previous token is the command name.
-				if [ $j -ge 2 ] && [ -n "$first" ]; then
-					((j--))
-				fi
-				first=
-				words[$j]=${words[j]}${COMP_WORDS[i]}
-				if [ $i = $COMP_CWORD ]; then
-					cword=$j
-				fi
-				if (($i < ${#COMP_WORDS[@]} - 1)); then
-					((i++))
-				else
-					# Done.
-					break 2
-				fi
-			done
-			words[$j]=${words[j]}${COMP_WORDS[i]}
-			if [ $i = $COMP_CWORD ]; then
-				cword=$j
-			fi
-		done
-	else
-		words=("${COMP_WORDS[@]}")
-	fi
-
-	cur=${words[cword]}
-	prev=${words[cword-1]}
-}
-fi
-
 # Appends prefiltered words to COMPREPLY without any additional processing.
 # Callers must take care of providing only words that match the current word
 # to be completed and adding any prefix and/or suffix (trailing space!), if
@@ -3474,10 +3382,100 @@ if [[ -n ${ZSH_VERSION-} ]] &&
 	return
 fi
 
+# The following function is based on code from:
+#
+#   bash_completion - programmable completion functions for bash 3.2+
+#
+#   Copyright © 2006-2008, Ian Macdonald <ian@caliban.org>
+#             © 2009-2010, Bash Completion Maintainers
+#                     <bash-completion-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
+#
+#   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+#   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+#   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
+#   any later version.
+#
+#   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+#   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+#   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+#   GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+#   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+#   along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+#
+#   The latest version of this software can be obtained here:
+#
+#   http://bash-completion.alioth.debian.org/
+#
+#   RELEASE: 2.x
+
+# This function reorganizes the words on the command line to be processed by
+# the rest of the script.
+#
+# This is roughly equivalent to going back in time and setting
+# COMP_WORDBREAKS to exclude '=' and ':'.  The intent is to
+# make option types like --date=<type> and <rev>:<path> easy to
+# recognize by treating each shell word as a single token.
+#
+# It is best not to set COMP_WORDBREAKS directly because the value is
+# shared with other completion scripts.  By the time the completion
+# function gets called, COMP_WORDS has already been populated so local
+# changes to COMP_WORDBREAKS have no effect.
+
+__git_get_comp_words_by_ref ()
+{
+	local exclude i j first
+
+	# Which word separators to exclude?
+	exclude="${COMP_WORDBREAKS//[^=:]}"
+	cword=$COMP_CWORD
+	if [ -n "$exclude" ]; then
+		# List of word completion separators has shrunk;
+		# re-assemble words to complete.
+		for ((i=0, j=0; i < ${#COMP_WORDS[@]}; i++, j++)); do
+			# Append each nonempty word consisting of just
+			# word separator characters to the current word.
+			first=t
+			while
+				[ $i -gt 0 ] &&
+				[ -n "${COMP_WORDS[$i]}" ] &&
+				# word consists of excluded word separators
+				[ "${COMP_WORDS[$i]//[^$exclude]}" = "${COMP_WORDS[$i]}" ]
+			do
+				# Attach to the previous token,
+				# unless the previous token is the command name.
+				if [ $j -ge 2 ] && [ -n "$first" ]; then
+					((j--))
+				fi
+				first=
+				words[$j]=${words[j]}${COMP_WORDS[i]}
+				if [ $i = $COMP_CWORD ]; then
+					cword=$j
+				fi
+				if (($i < ${#COMP_WORDS[@]} - 1)); then
+					((i++))
+				else
+					# Done.
+					break 2
+				fi
+			done
+			words[$j]=${words[j]}${COMP_WORDS[i]}
+			if [ $i = $COMP_CWORD ]; then
+				cword=$j
+			fi
+		done
+	else
+		words=("${COMP_WORDS[@]}")
+	fi
+
+	cur=${words[cword]}
+	prev=${words[cword-1]}
+}
+
 __git_func_wrap ()
 {
 	local cur words cword prev
-	_get_comp_words_by_ref -n =: cur words cword prev
+	__git_get_comp_words_by_ref
 	$1
 }
 
diff --git a/t/t9902-completion.sh b/t/t9902-completion.sh
index bc18bd4b68..b8dfeb82bf 100755
--- a/t/t9902-completion.sh
+++ b/t/t9902-completion.sh
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ GIT_TESTING_PORCELAIN_COMMAND_LIST='add checkout rebase'
 # We don't need this function to actually join words or do anything special.
 # Also, it's cleaner to avoid touching bash's internal completion variables.
 # So let's override it with a minimal version for testing purposes.
-_get_comp_words_by_ref ()
+__git_get_comp_words_by_ref ()
 {
 	cword=$_cword
 	cur=${_words[cword]}
