1GIT-LOG(1) Git Manual GIT-LOG(1)
2
6 git-log - Show commit logs
7
9 git log [<options>] [<since>..<until>] [[--] <path>...]
10
12 Shows the commit logs.
13 The command takes options applicable to the git rev-list command to
15 control what is shown and how, and options applicable to the git diff-*
16 commands to control how the changes each commit introduces are shown.
17
19 -<n>
20 Limits the number of commits to show. Note that this is a commit
21 limiting option, see below.
22 <since>..<until>
24 Show only commits between the named two commits. When either
25 <since> or <until> is omitted, it defaults to HEAD, i.e. the tip of
26 the current branch. For a more complete list of ways to spell
27 <since> and <until>, see gitrevisions(7).
28 --follow
30 Continue listing the history of a file beyond renames (works only
31 for a single file).
32 --no-decorate, --decorate[=short|full|no]
34 Print out the ref names of any commits that are shown. If short is
35 specified, the ref name prefixes refs/heads/, refs/tags/ and
36 refs/remotes/ will not be printed. If full is specified, the full
37 ref name (including prefix) will be printed. The default option is
38 short.
39 --source
41 Print out the ref name given on the command line by which each
42 commit was reached.
43 --full-diff
45 Without this flag, "git log -p <path>..." shows commits that touch
46 the specified paths, and diffs about the same specified paths. With
47 this, the full diff is shown for commits that touch the specified
48 paths; this means that "<path>..." limits only commits, and doesn’t
49 limit diff for those commits.
50 Note that this affects all diff-based output types, e.g. those
52 produced by --stat etc.
53 --log-size
55 Before the log message print out its size in bytes. Intended mainly
56 for porcelain tools consumption. If git is unable to produce a
57 valid value size is set to zero. Note that only message is
58 considered, if also a diff is shown its size is not included.
59 [--] <path>...
61 Show only commits that affect any of the specified paths. To
62 prevent confusion with options and branch names, paths may need to
63 be prefixed with "-- " to separate them from options or refnames.
64 Commit Limiting
66 Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the
67 special notations explained in the description, additional commit
68 limiting may be applied. Note that they are applied before commit
69 ordering and formatting options, such as --reverse.
70 -n number, --max-count=<number>
72 Limit the number of commits to output.
73 --skip=<number>
75 Skip number commits before starting to show the commit output.
76 --since=<date>, --after=<date>
78 Show commits more recent than a specific date.
79 --until=<date>, --before=<date>
81 Show commits older than a specific date.
82 --author=<pattern>, --committer=<pattern>
84 Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header lines
85 that match the specified pattern (regular expression).
86 --grep=<pattern>
88 Limit the commits output to ones with log message that matches the
89 specified pattern (regular expression).
90 --all-match
92 Limit the commits output to ones that match all given --grep,
93 --author and --committer instead of ones that match at least one.
94 -i, --regexp-ignore-case
96 Match the regexp limiting patterns without regard to letters case.
97 -E, --extended-regexp
99 Consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions
100 instead of the default basic regular expressions.
101 -F, --fixed-strings
103 Consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don’t interpret
104 pattern as a regular expression).
105 --remove-empty
107 Stop when a given path disappears from the tree.
108 --merges
110 Print only merge commits.
111 --no-merges
113 Do not print commits with more than one parent.
114 --first-parent
116 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit.
117 This option can give a better overview when viewing the evolution
118 of a particular topic branch, because merges into a topic branch
119 tend to be only about adjusting to updated upstream from time to
120 time, and this option allows you to ignore the individual commits
121 brought in to your history by such a merge.
122 --not
124 Reverses the meaning of the ^ prefix (or lack thereof) for all
125 following revision specifiers, up to the next --not.
126 --all
128 Pretend as if all the refs in refs/ are listed on the command line
129 as <commit>.
130 --branches[=<pattern>]
132 Pretend as if all the refs in refs/heads are listed on the command
133 line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit branches to ones
134 matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?, , or [, / at the end
135 is implied.
136 --tags[=<pattern>]
138 Pretend as if all the refs in refs/tags are listed on the command
139 line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit tags to ones
140 matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?, , or [, / at the end
141 is implied.
142 --remotes[=<pattern>]
144 Pretend as if all the refs in refs/remotes are listed on the
145 command line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit
146 remote-tracking branches to ones matching given shell glob. If
147 pattern lacks ?, , or [, / at the end is implied.
148 --glob=<glob-pattern>
150 Pretend as if all the refs matching shell glob <glob-pattern> are
151 listed on the command line as <commit>. Leading refs/, is
152 automatically prepended if missing. If pattern lacks ?, , or [, /
153 at the end is implied.
154 --bisect
156 Pretend as if the bad bisection ref refs/bisect/bad was listed and
157 as if it was followed by --not and the good bisection refs
158 refs/bisect/good-* on the command line.
159 --stdin
161 In addition to the <commit> listed on the command line, read them
162 from the standard input. If a -- separator is seen, stop reading
163 commits and start reading paths to limit the result.
164 --cherry-pick
166 Omit any commit that introduces the same change as another commit
167 on the "other side" when the set of commits are limited with
168 symmetric difference.
169 For example, if you have two branches, A and B, a usual way to list
171 all commits on only one side of them is with --left-right, like the
172 example above in the description of that option. It however shows
173 the commits that were cherry-picked from the other branch (for
174 example, "3rd on b" may be cherry-picked from branch A). With this
175 option, such pairs of commits are excluded from the output.
176 -g, --walk-reflogs
178 Instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk reflog entries
179 from the most recent one to older ones. When this option is used
180 you cannot specify commits to exclude (that is, ^commit,
181 commit1..commit2, nor commit1...commit2 notations cannot be used).
182 With --pretty format other than oneline (for obvious reasons), this
184 causes the output to have two extra lines of information taken from
185 the reflog. By default, commit@{Nth} notation is used in the
186 output. When the starting commit is specified as commit@{now},
187 output also uses commit@{timestamp} notation instead. Under
188 --pretty=oneline, the commit message is prefixed with this
189 information on the same line. This option cannot be combined with
190 --reverse. See also git-reflog(1).
191 --merge
193 After a failed merge, show refs that touch files having a conflict
194 and don’t exist on all heads to merge.
195 --boundary
197 Output uninteresting commits at the boundary, which are usually not
198 shown.
199 History Simplification
201 Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example
202 the commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of
203 History Simplification, one part is selecting the commits and the other
204 is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the
205 history.
206 The following options select the commits to be shown:
208 <paths>
210 Commits modifying the given <paths> are selected.
211 --simplify-by-decoration
213 Commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected.
214 Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history.
216 The following options affect the way the simplification is performed:
218 Default mode
220 Simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the final
221 state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side branches if
222 the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches with the same
223 content)
224 --full-history
226 As the default mode but does not prune some history.
227 --dense
229 Only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a meaningful
230 history.
231 --sparse
233 All commits in the simplified history are shown.
234 --simplify-merges
236 Additional option to --full-history to remove some needless merges
237 from the resulting history, as there are no selected commits
238 contributing to this merge.
239 --ancestry-path
241 When given a range of commits to display (e.g. commit1..commit2 or
242 commit2 ^commit1), only display commits that exist directly on the
243 ancestry chain between the commit1 and commit2, i.e. commits that
244 are both descendants of commit1, and ancestors of commit2.
245 A more detailed explanation follows.
247 Suppose you specified foo as the <paths>. We shall call commits that
249 modify foo !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff filtered for
250 foo, they look different and equal, respectively.)
251 In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to
253 illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume
254 that you are filtering for a file foo in this commit graph:
255 .-A---M---N---O---P
257 / / / / /
258 I B C D E
259 \ / / / /
260 `-------------'
261 The horizontal line of history A—P is taken to be the first parent of
264 each merge. The commits are:
265 · I is the initial commit, in which foo exists with contents "asdf",
267 and a file quux exists with contents "quux". Initial commits are
268 compared to an empty tree, so I is !TREESAME.
269 · In A, foo contains just "foo".
271 · B contains the same change as A. Its merge M is trivial and hence
273 TREESAME to all parents.
274 · C does not change foo, but its merge N changes it to "foobar", so
276 it is not TREESAME to any parent.
277 · D sets foo to "baz". Its merge O combines the strings from N and D
279 to "foobarbaz"; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent.
280 · E changes quux to "xyzzy", and its merge P combines the strings to
282 "quux xyzzy". Despite appearing interesting, P is TREESAME to all
283 parents.
284 rev-list walks backwards through history, including or excluding
286 commits based on whether --full-history and/or parent rewriting (via
287 --parents or --children) are used. The following settings are
288 available.
289 Default mode
291 Commits are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent (though
292 this can be changed, see --sparse below). If the commit was a
293 merge, and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow only that parent.
294 (Even if there are several TREESAME parents, follow only one of
295 them.) Otherwise, follow all parents.
296 This results in:
298 .-A---N---O
300 / / /
301 I---------D
302 Note how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is
304 available, removed B from consideration entirely. C was considered
305 via N, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an empty tree,
306 so I is !TREESAME.
307 Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that
309 does not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have
310 shown the parent lines.
311 --full-history without parent rewriting
313 This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow all
314 parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. Even if
315 more than one side of the merge has commits that are included, this
316 does not imply that the merge itself is! In the example, we get
317 I A B N D O
319 P and M were excluded because they are TREESAME to a parent. E, C
321 and B were all walked, but only B was !TREESAME, so the others do
322 not appear.
323 Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to
325 talk about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so
326 we show them disconnected.
327 --full-history with parent rewriting
329 Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME (though
330 this can be changed, see --sparse below).
331 Merges are always included. However, their parent list is
333 rewritten: Along each parent, prune away commits that are not
334 included themselves. This results in
335 .-A---M---N---O---P
337 / / / / /
338 I B / D /
339 \ / / / /
340 `-------------'
341 Compare to --full-history without rewriting above. Note that E was
343 pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was
344 rewritten to contain E's parent I. The same happened for C and N.
345 Note also that P was included despite being TREESAME.
346 In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME
348 affects inclusion:
349 --dense
351 Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME to
352 any parent.
353 --sparse
355 All commits that are walked are included.
356 Note that without --full-history, this still simplifies merges: if
358 one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the
359 other sides of the merge are never walked.
360 --simplify-merges
362 First, build a history graph in the same way that --full-history
363 with parent rewriting does (see above).
364 Then simplify each commit ‘C` to its replacement C’ in the final
366 history according to the following rules:
367 · Set ‘C’` to C.
369 · Replace each parent ‘P` of C’ with its simplification ‘P’`. In
371 the process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents,
372 and remove duplicates.
373 · If after this parent rewriting, ‘C’` is a root or merge commit
375 (has zero or >1 parents), a boundary commit, or !TREESAME, it
376 remains. Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent.
377 The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to
379 --full-history with parent rewriting. The example turns into:
380 .-A---M---N---O
382 / / /
383 I B D
384 \ / /
385 `---------'
386 Note the major differences in N and P over --full-history:
388 · N's parent list had I removed, because it is an ancestor of
390 the other parent M. Still, N remained because it is !TREESAME.
391 · P's parent list similarly had I removed. P was then removed
393 completely, because it had one parent and is TREESAME.
394 Finally, there is a fifth simplification mode available:
396 --ancestry-path
398 Limit the displayed commits to those directly on the ancestry chain
399 between the "from" and "to" commits in the given commit range. I.e.
400 only display commits that are ancestor of the "to" commit, and
401 descendants of the "from" commit.
402 As an example use case, consider the following commit history:
404 D---E-------F
406 / \ \
407 B---C---G---H---I---J
408 / \
409 A-------K---------------L--M
410 A regular D..M computes the set of commits that are ancestors of M,
412 but excludes the ones that are ancestors of D. This is useful to
413 see what happened to the history leading to M since D, in the sense
414 that "what does M have that did not exist in D". The result in this
415 example would be all the commits, except A and B (and D itself, of
416 course).
417 When we want to find out what commits in M are contaminated with
419 the bug introduced by D and need fixing, however, we might want to
420 view only the subset of D..M that are actually descendants of D,
421 i.e. excluding C and K. This is exactly what the --ancestry-path
422 option does. Applied to the D..M range, it results in:
423 E-------F
425 \ \
426 G---H---I---J
427 \
428 L--M
429 The --simplify-by-decoration option allows you to view only the big
432 picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits that are
433 not referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME (in other
434 words, kept after history simplification rules described above) if (1)
435 they are referenced by tags, or (2) they change the contents of the
436 paths given on the command line. All other commits are marked as
437 TREESAME (subject to be simplified away).
438 Commit Ordering
440 By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order.
441 --topo-order
443 This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e. descendant
444 commits are shown before their parents).
445 --date-order
447 This option is similar to --topo-order in the sense that no parent
448 comes before all of its children, but otherwise things are still
449 ordered in the commit timestamp order.
450 --reverse
452 Output the commits in reverse order. Cannot be combined with
453 --walk-reflogs.
454 Object Traversal
456 These options are mostly targeted for packing of git repositories.
457 --objects
459 Print the object IDs of any object referenced by the listed
460 commits. --objects foo ^bar thus means "send me all object IDs
461 which I need to download if I have the commit object bar, but not
462 foo".
463 --objects-edge
465 Similar to --objects, but also print the IDs of excluded commits
466 prefixed with a "-" character. This is used by git-pack-objects(1)
467 to build "thin" pack, which records objects in deltified form based
468 on objects contained in these excluded commits to reduce network
469 traffic.
470 --unpacked
472 Only useful with --objects; print the object IDs that are not in
473 packs.
474 --no-walk
476 Only show the given revs, but do not traverse their ancestors.
477 --do-walk
479 Overrides a previous --no-walk.
480 Commit Formatting
482 --pretty[=<format>], --format=<format>
483 Pretty-print the contents of the commit logs in a given format,
484 where <format> can be one of oneline, short, medium, full, fuller,
485 email, raw and format:<string>. See the "PRETTY FORMATS" section
486 for some additional details for each format. When omitted, the
487 format defaults to medium.
488 Note: you can specify the default pretty format in the repository
490 configuration (see git-config(1)).
491 --abbrev-commit
493 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal commit object name,
494 show only a partial prefix. Non default number of digits can be
495 specified with "--abbrev=<n>" (which also modifies diff output, if
496 it is displayed).
497 This should make "--pretty=oneline" a whole lot more readable for
499 people using 80-column terminals.
500 --oneline
502 This is a shorthand for "--pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit" used
503 together.
504 --encoding[=<encoding>]
506 The commit objects record the encoding used for the log message in
507 their encoding header; this option can be used to tell the command
508 to re-code the commit log message in the encoding preferred by the
509 user. For non plumbing commands this defaults to UTF-8.
510 --no-notes, --show-notes[=<ref>]
512 Show the notes (see git-notes(1)) that annotate the commit, when
513 showing the commit log message. This is the default for git log,
514 git show and git whatchanged commands when there is no --pretty,
515 --format nor --oneline option is given on the command line.
516 With an optional argument, add this ref to the list of notes. The
518 ref is taken to be in refs/notes/ if it is not qualified.
519 --[no-]standard-notes
521 Enable or disable populating the notes ref list from the
522 core.notesRef and notes.displayRef variables (or corresponding
523 environment overrides). Enabled by default. See git-config(1).
524 --relative-date
526 Synonym for --date=relative.
527 --date=(relative|local|default|iso|rfc|short|raw)
529 Only takes effect for dates shown in human-readable format, such as
530 when using "--pretty". log.date config variable sets a default
531 value for log command’s --date option.
532 --date=relative shows dates relative to the current time, e.g. "2
534 hours ago".
535 --date=local shows timestamps in user’s local timezone.
537 --date=iso (or --date=iso8601) shows timestamps in ISO 8601 format.
539 --date=rfc (or --date=rfc2822) shows timestamps in RFC 2822 format,
541 often found in E-mail messages.
542 --date=short shows only date but not time, in YYYY-MM-DD format.
544 --date=raw shows the date in the internal raw git format %s %z
546 format.
547 --date=default shows timestamps in the original timezone (either
549 committer’s or author’s).
550 --parents
552 Print also the parents of the commit (in the form "commit
553 parent..."). Also enables parent rewriting, see History
554 Simplification below.
555 --children
557 Print also the children of the commit (in the form "commit
558 child..."). Also enables parent rewriting, see History
559 Simplification below.
560 --left-right
562 Mark which side of a symmetric diff a commit is reachable from.
563 Commits from the left side are prefixed with < and those from the
564 right with >. If combined with --boundary, those commits are
565 prefixed with -.
566 For example, if you have this topology:
568 y---b---b branch B
570 / \ /
571 / .
572 / / \
573 o---x---a---a branch A
574 you would get an output like this:
576 $ git rev-list --left-right --boundary --pretty=oneline A...B
578 >bbbbbbb... 3rd on b
580 >bbbbbbb... 2nd on b
581 <aaaaaaa... 3rd on a
582 <aaaaaaa... 2nd on a
583 -yyyyyyy... 1st on b
584 -xxxxxxx... 1st on a
585 --graph
588 Draw a text-based graphical representation of the commit history on
589 the left hand side of the output. This may cause extra lines to be
590 printed in between commits, in order for the graph history to be
591 drawn properly.
592 This enables parent rewriting, see History Simplification below.
594 This implies the --topo-order option by default, but the
596 --date-order option may also be specified.
597 Diff Formatting
599 Below are listed options that control the formatting of diff output.
600 Some of them are specific to git-rev-list(1), however other diff
601 options may be given. See git-diff-files(1) for more options.
602 -c
604 With this option, diff output for a merge commit shows the
605 differences from each of the parents to the merge result
606 simultaneously instead of showing pairwise diff between a parent
607 and the result one at a time. Furthermore, it lists only files
608 which were modified from all parents.
609 --cc
611 This flag implies the -c options and further compresses the patch
612 output by omitting uninteresting hunks whose contents in the
613 parents have only two variants and the merge result picks one of
614 them without modification.
615 -m
617 This flag makes the merge commits show the full diff like regular
618 commits; for each merge parent, a separate log entry and diff is
619 generated. An exception is that only diff against the first parent
620 is shown when --first-parent option is given; in that case, the
621 output represents the changes the merge brought into the
622 then-current branch.
623 -r
625 Show recursive diffs.
626 -t
628 Show the tree objects in the diff output. This implies -r.
629 -s
631 Suppress diff output.
632
634 If the commit is a merge, and if the pretty-format is not oneline,
635 email or raw, an additional line is inserted before the Author: line.
636 This line begins with "Merge: " and the sha1s of ancestral commits are
637 printed, separated by spaces. Note that the listed commits may not
638 necessarily be the list of the direct parent commits if you have
639 limited your view of history: for example, if you are only interested
640 in changes related to a certain directory or file.
641 There are several built-in formats, and you can define additional
643 formats by setting a pretty.<name> config option to either another
644 format name, or a format: string, as described below (see git-
645 config(1)). Here are the details of the built-in formats:
646 · oneline
648 <sha1> <title line>
650 This is designed to be as compact as possible.
652 · short
654 commit <sha1>
656 Author: <author>
657 <title line>
659 · medium
661 commit <sha1>
663 Author: <author>
664 Date: <author date>
665 <title line>
667 <full commit message>
669 · full
671 commit <sha1>
673 Author: <author>
674 Commit: <committer>
675 <title line>
677 <full commit message>
679 · fuller
681 commit <sha1>
683 Author: <author>
684 AuthorDate: <author date>
685 Commit: <committer>
686 CommitDate: <committer date>
687 <title line>
689 <full commit message>
691 · email
693 From <sha1> <date>
695 From: <author>
696 Date: <author date>
697 Subject: [PATCH] <title line>
698 <full commit message>
700 · raw
702 The raw format shows the entire commit exactly as stored in the
704 commit object. Notably, the SHA1s are displayed in full, regardless
705 of whether --abbrev or --no-abbrev are used, and parents
706 information show the true parent commits, without taking grafts nor
707 history simplification into account.
708 · format:<string>
710 The format:<string> format allows you to specify which information
712 you want to show. It works a little bit like printf format, with
713 the notable exception that you get a newline with %n instead of \n.
714 E.g, format:"The author of %h was %an, %ar%nThe title was >>%s<<%n"
716 would show something like this:
717 The author of fe6e0ee was Junio C Hamano, 23 hours ago
719 The title was >>t4119: test autocomputing -p<n> for traditional diff input.<<
720 The placeholders are:
722 · %H: commit hash
724 · %h: abbreviated commit hash
726 · %T: tree hash
728 · %t: abbreviated tree hash
730 · %P: parent hashes
732 · %p: abbreviated parent hashes
734 · %an: author name
736 · %aN: author name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or
738 git-blame(1))
739 · %ae: author email
741 · %aE: author email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or
743 git-blame(1))
744 · %ad: author date (format respects --date= option)
746 · %aD: author date, RFC2822 style
748 · %ar: author date, relative
750 · %at: author date, UNIX timestamp
752 · %ai: author date, ISO 8601 format
754 · %cn: committer name
756 · %cN: committer name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1)
758 or git-blame(1))
759 · %ce: committer email
761 · %cE: committer email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1)
763 or git-blame(1))
764 · %cd: committer date
766 · %cD: committer date, RFC2822 style
768 · %cr: committer date, relative
770 · %ct: committer date, UNIX timestamp
772 · %ci: committer date, ISO 8601 format
774 · %d: ref names, like the --decorate option of git-log(1)
776 · %e: encoding
778 · %s: subject
780 · %f: sanitized subject line, suitable for a filename
782 · %b: body
784 · %B: raw body (unwrapped subject and body)
786 · %N: commit notes
788 · %gD: reflog selector, e.g., refs/stash@{1}
790 · %gd: shortened reflog selector, e.g., stash@{1}
792 · %gs: reflog subject
794 · %Cred: switch color to red
796 · %Cgreen: switch color to green
798 · %Cblue: switch color to blue
800 · %Creset: reset color
802 · %C(...): color specification, as described in color.branch.*
804 config option
805 · %m: left, right or boundary mark
807 · %n: newline
809 · %%: a raw %
811 · %x00: print a byte from a hex code
813 · %w([<w>[,<i1>[,<i2>]]]): switch line wrapping, like the -w
815 option of git-shortlog(1).
816 Note
818 Some placeholders may depend on other options given to the revision
819 traversal engine. For example, the %g* reflog options will insert
820 an empty string unless we are traversing reflog entries (e.g., by
821 git log -g). The %d placeholder will use the "short" decoration
822 format if --decorate was not already provided on the command line.
823 If you add a + (plus sign) after % of a placeholder, a line-feed is
825 inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the
826 placeholder expands to a non-empty string.
827 If you add a - (minus sign) after % of a placeholder, line-feeds that
829 immediately precede the expansion are deleted if and only if the
830 placeholder expands to an empty string.
831 If you add a ` ` (space) after % of a placeholder, a space is inserted
833 immediately before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands
834 to a non-empty string.
835 · tformat:
837 The tformat: format works exactly like format:, except that it
839 provides "terminator" semantics instead of "separator" semantics.
840 In other words, each commit has the message terminator character
841 (usually a newline) appended, rather than a separator placed
842 between entries. This means that the final entry of a single-line
843 format will be properly terminated with a new line, just as the
844 "oneline" format does. For example:
845 $ git log -2 --pretty=format:%h 4da45bef \
847 | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
848 4da45be
849 7134973 -- NO NEWLINE
850 $ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef \
852 | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
853 4da45be
854 7134973
855 In addition, any unrecognized string that has a % in it is
857 interpreted as if it has tformat: in front of it. For example,
858 these two are equivalent:
859 $ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef
861 $ git log -2 --pretty=%h 4da45bef
862
865 -p, -u, --patch
866 Generate patch (see section on generating patches).
867 -U<n>, --unified=<n>
869 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
870 three. Implies -p.
871 --raw
873 Generate the raw format.
874 --patch-with-raw
876 Synonym for -p --raw.
877 --patience
879 Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
880 --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>]]
882 Generate a diffstat. You can override the default output width for
883 80-column terminal by --stat=<width>. The width of the filename
884 part can be controlled by giving another width to it separated by a
885 comma.
886 --numstat
888 Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
889 decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
890 machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
891 0 0.
892 --shortstat
894 Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
895 number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
896 lines.
897 --dirstat[=<limit>]
899 Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of
900 lines added or removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with
901 changes below a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The
902 cut-off percent can be set with --dirstat=<limit>. Changes in a
903 child directory are not counted for the parent directory, unless
904 --cumulative is used.
905 --dirstat-by-file[=<limit>]
907 Same as --dirstat, but counts changed files instead of lines.
908 --summary
910 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
911 creations, renames and mode changes.
912 --patch-with-stat
914 Synonym for -p --stat.
915 -z
917 Separate the commits with NULs instead of with new newlines.
918 Also, when --raw or --numstat has been given, do not munge
920 pathnames and use NULs as output field terminators.
921 Without this option, each pathname output will have TAB, LF, double
923 quotes, and backslash characters replaced with \t, \n, \", and \\,
924 respectively, and the pathname will be enclosed in double quotes if
925 any of those replacements occurred.
926 --name-only
928 Show only names of changed files.
929 --name-status
931 Show only names and status of changed files. See the description of
932 the --diff-filter option on what the status letters mean.
933 --submodule[=<format>]
935 Chose the output format for submodule differences. <format> can be
936 one of short and log. short just shows pairs of commit names, this
937 format is used when this option is not given. log is the default
938 value for this option and lists the commits in that commit range
939 like the summary option of git-submodule(1) does.
940 --color[=<when>]
942 Show colored diff. The value must be always (the default), never,
943 or auto.
944 --no-color
946 Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file gives the
947 default to color output. Same as --color=never.
948 --word-diff[=<mode>]
950 Show a word diff, using the <mode> to delimit changed words. By
951 default, words are delimited by whitespace; see --word-diff-regex
952 below. The <mode> defaults to plain, and must be one of:
953 color
955 Highlight changed words using only colors. Implies --color.
956 plain
958 Show words as [-removed-] and {added}. Makes no attempts to
959 escape the delimiters if they appear in the input, so the
960 output may be ambiguous.
961 porcelain
963 Use a special line-based format intended for script
964 consumption. Added/removed/unchanged runs are printed in the
965 usual unified diff format, starting with a +/-/` ` character at
966 the beginning of the line and extending to the end of the line.
967 Newlines in the input are represented by a tilde ~ on a line of
968 its own.
969 none
971 Disable word diff again.
972 Note that despite the name of the first mode, color is used to
974 highlight the changed parts in all modes if enabled.
975 --word-diff-regex=<regex>
977 Use <regex> to decide what a word is, instead of considering runs
978 of non-whitespace to be a word. Also implies --word-diff unless it
979 was already enabled.
980 Every non-overlapping match of the <regex> is considered a word.
982 Anything between these matches is considered whitespace and
983 ignored(!) for the purposes of finding differences. You may want to
984 append |[^[:space:]] to your regular expression to make sure that
985 it matches all non-whitespace characters. A match that contains a
986 newline is silently truncated(!) at the newline.
987 The regex can also be set via a diff driver or configuration
989 option, see gitattributes(1) or git-config(1). Giving it explicitly
990 overrides any diff driver or configuration setting. Diff drivers
991 override configuration settings.
992 --color-words[=<regex>]
994 Equivalent to --word-diff=color plus (if a regex was specified)
995 --word-diff-regex=<regex>.
996 --no-renames
998 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
999 the default to do so.
1000 --check
1002 Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace or an indent that
1003 uses a space before a tab. Exits with non-zero status if problems
1004 are found. Not compatible with --exit-code.
1005 --full-index
1007 Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
1008 post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
1009 patch format output.
1010 --binary
1012 In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
1013 applied with git-apply.
1014 --abbrev[=<n>]
1016 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
1017 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
1018 partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
1019 above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
1020 number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
1021 -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
1023 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
1024 This serves two purposes:
1025 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
1027 file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
1028 a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
1029 as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
1030 insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
1031 of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70% specifies that less
1032 than 30% of the original should remain in the result for git to
1033 consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
1034 will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
1035 context lines).
1036 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
1038 the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
1039 disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
1040 this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%). -B20% specifies
1041 that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
1042 the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
1043 source of a rename to another file.
1044 -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
1046 If generating diffs, detect and report renames for each commit. For
1047 following files across renames while traversing history, see
1048 --follow. If n is specified, it is a is a threshold on the
1049 similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
1050 file’s size). For example, -M90% means git should consider a
1051 delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
1052 changed.
1053 -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
1055 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
1056 n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
1057 --find-copies-harder
1059 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
1060 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
1061 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
1062 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
1063 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
1064 option has the same effect.
1065 -l<num>
1067 The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
1068 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
1069 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
1070 targets exceeds the specified number.
1071 --diff-filter=[(A|C|D|M|R|T|U|X|B)...[*]]
1073 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
1074 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (i.e. regular file,
1075 symlink, submodule, ...) changed (T), are Unmerged (U), are Unknown
1076 (X), or have had their pairing Broken (B). Any combination of the
1077 filter characters (including none) can be used. When *
1078 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
1079 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
1080 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
1081 selected.
1082 -S<string>
1084 Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of
1085 <string>. Note that this is different than the string simply
1086 appearing in diff output; see the pickaxe entry in gitdiffcore(7)
1087 for more details.
1088 -G<regex>
1090 Look for differences whose added or removed line matches the given
1091 <regex>.
1092 --pickaxe-all
1094 When -S or -G finds a change, show all the changes in that
1095 changeset, not just the files that contain the change in <string>.
1096 --pickaxe-regex
1098 Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX regex to
1099 match.
1100 -O<orderfile>
1102 Output the patch in the order specified in the <orderfile>, which
1103 has one shell glob pattern per line.
1104 -R
1106 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
1107 file to tree contents.
1108 --relative[=<path>]
1110 When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
1111 exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
1112 to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
1113 a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
1114 output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
1115 -a, --text
1117 Treat all files as text.
1118 --ignore-space-at-eol
1120 Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
1121 -b, --ignore-space-change
1123 Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
1124 line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
1125 whitespace characters to be equivalent.
1126 -w, --ignore-all-space
1128 Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
1129 even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
1130 --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
1132 Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
1133 lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
1134 --exit-code
1136 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
1137 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
1138 --quiet
1140 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
1141 --ext-diff
1143 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
1144 external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
1145 option with git-log(1) and friends.
1146 --no-ext-diff
1148 Disallow external diff drivers.
1149 --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
1151 Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
1152 either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default
1153 Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
1154 contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
1155 commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
1156 settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
1157 When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
1158 they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
1159 modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
1160 tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
1161 superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
1162 "all" hides all changes to submodules.
1163 --src-prefix=<prefix>
1165 Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
1166 --dst-prefix=<prefix>
1168 Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
1169 --no-prefix
1171 Do not show any source or destination prefix.
1172 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
1174 gitdiffcore(7).
1175
1177 When "git-diff-index", "git-diff-tree", or "git-diff-files" are run
1178 with a -p option, "git diff" without the --raw option, or "git log"
1179 with the "-p" option, they do not produce the output described above;
1180 instead they produce a patch file. You can customize the creation of
1181 such patches via the GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF and the GIT_DIFF_OPTS
1182 environment variables.
1183 What the -p option produces is slightly different from the traditional
1185 diff format:
1186 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header that looks like this:
1188 diff --git a/file1 b/file2
1190 The a/ and b/ filenames are the same unless rename/copy is
1192 involved. Especially, even for a creation or a deletion, /dev/null
1193 is not used in place of the a/ or b/ filenames.
1194 When rename/copy is involved, file1 and file2 show the name of the
1196 source file of the rename/copy and the name of the file that
1197 rename/copy produces, respectively.
1198 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines:
1200 old mode <mode>
1202 new mode <mode>
1203 deleted file mode <mode>
1204 new file mode <mode>
1205 copy from <path>
1206 copy to <path>
1207 rename from <path>
1208 rename to <path>
1209 similarity index <number>
1210 dissimilarity index <number>
1211 index <hash>..<hash> <mode>
1212 File modes are printed as 6-digit octal numbers including the file
1214 type and file permission bits.
1215 Path names in extended headers do not include the a/ and b/
1217 prefixes.
1218 The similarity index is the percentage of unchanged lines, and the
1220 dissimilarity index is the percentage of changed lines. It is a
1221 rounded down integer, followed by a percent sign. The similarity
1222 index value of 100% is thus reserved for two equal files, while
1223 100% dissimilarity means that no line from the old file made it
1224 into the new one.
1225 The index line includes the SHA-1 checksum before and after the
1227 change. The <mode> is included if the file mode does not change;
1228 otherwise, separate lines indicate the old and the new mode.
1229 3. TAB, LF, double quote and backslash characters in pathnames are
1231 represented as \t, \n, \" and \\, respectively. If there is need
1232 for such substitution then the whole pathname is put in double
1233 quotes.
1234 4. All the file1 files in the output refer to files before the commit,
1236 and all the file2 files refer to files after the commit. It is
1237 incorrect to apply each change to each file sequentially. For
1238 example, this patch will swap a and b:
1239 diff --git a/a b/b
1241 rename from a
1242 rename to b
1243 diff --git a/b b/a
1244 rename from b
1245 rename to a
1246
1248 Any diff-generating command can take the ‘-c` or --cc option to produce
1249 a combined diff when showing a merge. This is the default format when
1250 showing merges with git-diff(1) or git-show(1). Note also that you can
1251 give the `-m’ option to any of these commands to force generation of
1252 diffs with individual parents of a merge.
1253 A combined diff format looks like this:
1255 diff --combined describe.c
1257 index fabadb8,cc95eb0..4866510
1258 --- a/describe.c
1259 +++ b/describe.c
1260 @@@ -98,20 -98,12 +98,20 @@@
1261 return (a_date > b_date) ? -1 : (a_date == b_date) ? 0 : 1;
1262 }
1263 - static void describe(char *arg)
1265 -static void describe(struct commit *cmit, int last_one)
1266 ++static void describe(char *arg, int last_one)
1267 {
1268 + unsigned char sha1[20];
1269 + struct commit *cmit;
1270 struct commit_list *list;
1271 static int initialized = 0;
1272 struct commit_name *n;
1273 + if (get_sha1(arg, sha1) < 0)
1275 + usage(describe_usage);
1276 + cmit = lookup_commit_reference(sha1);
1277 + if (!cmit)
1278 + usage(describe_usage);
1279 +
1280 if (!initialized) {
1281 initialized = 1;
1282 for_each_ref(get_name);
1283 1. It is preceded with a "git diff" header, that looks like this (when
1287 -c option is used):
1288 diff --combined file
1290 or like this (when --cc option is used):
1292 diff --cc file
1294 2. It is followed by one or more extended header lines (this example
1296 shows a merge with two parents):
1297 index <hash>,<hash>..<hash>
1299 mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode>
1300 new file mode <mode>
1301 deleted file mode <mode>,<mode>
1302 The mode <mode>,<mode>..<mode> line appears only if at least one of
1304 the <mode> is different from the rest. Extended headers with
1305 information about detected contents movement (renames and copying
1306 detection) are designed to work with diff of two <tree-ish> and are
1307 not used by combined diff format.
1308 3. It is followed by two-line from-file/to-file header
1310 --- a/file
1312 +++ b/file
1313 Similar to two-line header for traditional unified diff format,
1315 /dev/null is used to signal created or deleted files.
1316 4. Chunk header format is modified to prevent people from accidentally
1318 feeding it to patch -p1. Combined diff format was created for
1319 review of merge commit changes, and was not meant for apply. The
1320 change is similar to the change in the extended index header:
1321 @@@ <from-file-range> <from-file-range> <to-file-range> @@@
1323 There are (number of parents + 1) @ characters in the chunk header
1325 for combined diff format.
1326 Unlike the traditional unified diff format, which shows two files A and
1328 B with a single column that has - (minus — appears in A but removed in
1329 B), + (plus — missing in A but added to B), or " " (space — unchanged)
1330 prefix, this format compares two or more files file1, file2,... with
1331 one file X, and shows how X differs from each of fileN. One column for
1332 each of fileN is prepended to the output line to note how X’s line is
1333 different from it.
1334 A - character in the column N means that the line appears in fileN but
1336 it does not appear in the result. A + character in the column N means
1337 that the line appears in the result, and fileN does not have that line
1338 (in other words, the line was added, from the point of view of that
1339 parent).
1340 In the above example output, the function signature was changed from
1342 both files (hence two - removals from both file1 and file2, plus ++ to
1343 mean one line that was added does not appear in either file1 nor
1344 file2). Also eight other lines are the same from file1 but do not
1345 appear in file2 (hence prefixed with +).
1346 When shown by git diff-tree -c, it compares the parents of a merge
1348 commit with the merge result (i.e. file1..fileN are the parents). When
1349 shown by git diff-files -c, it compares the two unresolved merge
1350 parents with the working tree file (i.e. file1 is stage 2 aka "our
1351 version", file2 is stage 3 aka "their version").
1352
1354 git log --no-merges
1355 Show the whole commit history, but skip any merges
1356 git log v2.6.12.. include/scsi drivers/scsi
1358 Show all commits since version v2.6.12 that changed any file in the
1359 include/scsi or drivers/scsi subdirectories
1360 git log --since="2 weeks ago" -- gitk
1362 Show the changes during the last two weeks to the file gitk. The
1363 "--" is necessary to avoid confusion with the branch named gitk
1364 git log --name-status release..test
1366 Show the commits that are in the "test" branch but not yet in the
1367 "release" branch, along with the list of paths each commit
1368 modifies.
1369 git log --follow builtin-rev-list.c
1371 Shows the commits that changed builtin-rev-list.c, including those
1372 commits that occurred before the file was given its present name.
1373 git log --branches --not --remotes=origin
1375 Shows all commits that are in any of local branches but not in any
1376 of remote-tracking branches for origin (what you have that origin
1377 doesn’t).
1378 git log master --not --remotes=*/master
1380 Shows all commits that are in local master but not in any remote
1381 repository master branches.
1382 git log -p -m --first-parent
1384 Shows the history including change diffs, but only from the "main
1385 branch" perspective, skipping commits that come from merged
1386 branches, and showing full diffs of changes introduced by the
1387 merges. This makes sense only when following a strict policy of
1388 merging all topic branches when staying on a single integration
1389 branch.
1390
1392 At the core level, git is character encoding agnostic.
1393 · The pathnames recorded in the index and in the tree objects are
1395 treated as uninterpreted sequences of non-NUL bytes. What
1396 readdir(2) returns are what are recorded and compared with the data
1397 git keeps track of, which in turn are expected to be what lstat(2)
1398 and creat(2) accepts. There is no such thing as pathname encoding
1399 translation.
1400 · The contents of the blob objects are uninterpreted sequences of
1402 bytes. There is no encoding translation at the core level.
1403 · The commit log messages are uninterpreted sequences of non-NUL
1405 bytes.
1406 Although we encourage that the commit log messages are encoded in
1408 UTF-8, both the core and git Porcelain are designed not to force UTF-8
1409 on projects. If all participants of a particular project find it more
1410 convenient to use legacy encodings, git does not forbid it. However,
1411 there are a few things to keep in mind.
1412 1. git commit and git commit-tree issues a warning if the commit log
1414 message given to it does not look like a valid UTF-8 string, unless
1415 you explicitly say your project uses a legacy encoding. The way to
1416 say this is to have i18n.commitencoding in .git/config file, like
1417 this:
1418 [i18n]
1420 commitencoding = ISO-8859-1
1421 Commit objects created with the above setting record the value of
1423 i18n.commitencoding in its encoding header. This is to help other
1424 people who look at them later. Lack of this header implies that the
1425 commit log message is encoded in UTF-8.
1426 2. git log, git show, git blame and friends look at the encoding
1428 header of a commit object, and try to re-code the log message into
1429 UTF-8 unless otherwise specified. You can specify the desired
1430 output encoding with i18n.logoutputencoding in .git/config file,
1431 like this:
1432 [i18n]
1434 logoutputencoding = ISO-8859-1
1435 If you do not have this configuration variable, the value of
1437 i18n.commitencoding is used instead.
1438 Note that we deliberately chose not to re-code the commit log message
1440 when a commit is made to force UTF-8 at the commit object level,
1441 because re-coding to UTF-8 is not necessarily a reversible operation.
1442
1444 See git-config(1) for core variables and git-diff(1) for settings
1445 related to diff generation.
1446 format.pretty
1448 Default for the --format option. (See "PRETTY FORMATS" above.)
1449 Defaults to "medium".
1450 i18n.logOutputEncoding
1452 Encoding to use when displaying logs. (See "Discussion", above.)
1453 Defaults to the value of i18n.commitEncoding if set, UTF-8
1454 otherwise.
1455 log.date
1457 Default format for human-readable dates. (Compare the --date
1458 option.) Defaults to "default", which means to write dates like Sat
1459 May 8 19:35:34 2010 -0500.
1460 log.showroot
1462 If false, git log and related commands will not treat the initial
1463 commit as a big creation event. Any root commits in git log -p
1464 output would be shown without a diff attached. The default is true.
1465 mailmap.file
1467 See git-shortlog(1).
1468 notes.displayRef
1470 Which refs, in addition to the default set by core.notesRef or
1471 GIT_NOTES_REF, to read notes from when showing commit messages with
1472 the log family of commands. See git-notes(1).
1473 May be an unabbreviated ref name or a glob and may be specified
1475 multiple times. A warning will be issued for refs that do not
1476 exist, but a glob that does not match any refs is silently ignored.
1477 This setting can be disabled by the --no-standard-notes option,
1479 overridden by the GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF environment variable, and
1480 supplemented by the --show-notes option.
1481
1483 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org[1]>
1484
1486 Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list
1487 <git@vger.kernel.org[2]>.
1488
1490 Part of the git(1) suite
1491
1493 1. torvalds@osdl.org
1494 mailto:torvalds@osdl.org
1495 2. git@vger.kernel.org
1497 mailto:git@vger.kernel.org
1498Git 1.7.4.4 04/11/2011 GIT-LOG(1)