1GITREVISIONS(7) Git Manual GITREVISIONS(7)
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6 gitrevisions - Specifying revisions and ranges for Git
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9 gitrevisions
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12 Many Git commands take revision parameters as arguments. Depending on
13 the command, they denote a specific commit or, for commands which walk
14 the revision graph (such as git-log(1)), all commits which are
15 reachable from that commit. For commands that walk the revision graph
16 one can also specify a range of revisions explicitly.
17 In addition, some Git commands (such as git-show(1) and git-push(1))
19 can also take revision parameters which denote other objects than
20 commits, e.g. blobs ("files") or trees ("directories of files").
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23 A revision parameter <rev> typically, but not necessarily, names a
24 commit object. It uses what is called an extended SHA-1 syntax. Here
25 are various ways to spell object names. The ones listed near the end of
26 this list name trees and blobs contained in a commit.
27 Note
29 This document shows the "raw" syntax as seen by git. The shell and
30 other UIs might require additional quoting to protect special
31 characters and to avoid word splitting.
32 <sha1>, e.g. dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735, dae86e
34 The full SHA-1 object name (40-byte hexadecimal string), or a
35 leading substring that is unique within the repository. E.g.
36 dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735 and dae86e both name the
37 same commit object if there is no other object in your repository
38 whose object name starts with dae86e.
39 <describeOutput>, e.g. v1.7.4.2-679-g3bee7fb
41 Output from git describe; i.e. a closest tag, optionally followed
42 by a dash and a number of commits, followed by a dash, a g, and an
43 abbreviated object name.
44 <refname>, e.g. master, heads/master, refs/heads/master
46 A symbolic ref name. E.g. master typically means the commit object
47 referenced by refs/heads/master. If you happen to have both
48 heads/master and tags/master, you can explicitly say heads/master
49 to tell Git which one you mean. When ambiguous, a <refname> is
50 disambiguated by taking the first match in the following rules:
51 1. If $GIT_DIR/<refname> exists, that is what you mean (this is
53 usually useful only for HEAD, FETCH_HEAD, ORIG_HEAD, MERGE_HEAD
54 and CHERRY_PICK_HEAD);
55 2. otherwise, refs/<refname> if it exists;
57 3. otherwise, refs/tags/<refname> if it exists;
59 4. otherwise, refs/heads/<refname> if it exists;
61 5. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname> if it exists;
63 6. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname>/HEAD if it exists.
65 HEAD names the commit on which you based the changes in the
67 working tree. FETCH_HEAD records the branch which you fetched
68 from a remote repository with your last git fetch invocation.
69 ORIG_HEAD is created by commands that move your HEAD in a
70 drastic way, to record the position of the HEAD before their
71 operation, so that you can easily change the tip of the branch
72 back to the state before you ran them. MERGE_HEAD records the
73 commit(s) which you are merging into your branch when you run
74 git merge. CHERRY_PICK_HEAD records the commit which you are
75 cherry-picking when you run git cherry-pick.
76 Note that any of the refs/* cases above may come either from
78 the $GIT_DIR/refs directory or from the $GIT_DIR/packed-refs
79 file. While the ref name encoding is unspecified, UTF-8 is
80 preferred as some output processing may assume ref names in
81 UTF-8.
82 @
84 @ alone is a shortcut for HEAD.
85 [<refname>]@{<date>}, e.g. master@{yesterday}, HEAD@{5 minutes ago}
87 A ref followed by the suffix @ with a date specification enclosed
88 in a brace pair (e.g. {yesterday}, {1 month 2 weeks 3 days 1 hour
89 1 second ago} or {1979-02-26 18:30:00}) specifies the value of the
90 ref at a prior point in time. This suffix may only be used
91 immediately following a ref name and the ref must have an existing
92 log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>). Note that this looks up the state of
93 your local ref at a given time; e.g., what was in your local master
94 branch last week. If you want to look at commits made during
95 certain times, see --since and --until.
96 <refname>@{<n>}, e.g. master@{1}
98 A ref followed by the suffix @ with an ordinal specification
99 enclosed in a brace pair (e.g. {1}, {15}) specifies the n-th prior
100 value of that ref. For example master@{1} is the immediate prior
101 value of master while master@{5} is the 5th prior value of master.
102 This suffix may only be used immediately following a ref name and
103 the ref must have an existing log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<refname>).
104 @{<n>}, e.g. @{1}
106 You can use the @ construct with an empty ref part to get at a
107 reflog entry of the current branch. For example, if you are on
108 branch blabla then @{1} means the same as blabla@{1}.
109 @{-<n>}, e.g. @{-1}
111 The construct @{-<n>} means the <n>th branch/commit checked out
112 before the current one.
113 [<branchname>]@{upstream}, e.g. master@{upstream}, @{u}
115 The suffix @{upstream} to a branchname (short form
116 <branchname>@{u}) refers to the branch that the branch specified by
117 branchname is set to build on top of (configured with
118 branch.<name>.remote and branch.<name>.merge). A missing branchname
119 defaults to the current one. These suffixes are also accepted when
120 spelled in uppercase, and they mean the same thing no matter the
121 case.
122 [<branchname>]@{push}, e.g. master@{push}, @{push}
124 The suffix @{push} reports the branch "where we would push to" if
125 git push were run while branchname was checked out (or the current
126 HEAD if no branchname is specified). Since our push destination is
127 in a remote repository, of course, we report the local tracking
128 branch that corresponds to that branch (i.e., something in
129 refs/remotes/).
130 Here’s an example to make it more clear:
132 $ git config push.default current
134 $ git config remote.pushdefault myfork
135 $ git switch -c mybranch origin/master
136 $ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{upstream}
138 refs/remotes/origin/master
139 $ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{push}
141 refs/remotes/myfork/mybranch
142 Note in the example that we set up a triangular workflow, where we
144 pull from one location and push to another. In a non-triangular
145 workflow, @{push} is the same as @{upstream}, and there is no need
146 for it.
147 This suffix is also accepted when spelled in uppercase, and means
149 the same thing no matter the case.
150 <rev>^[<n>], e.g. HEAD^, v1.5.1^0
152 A suffix ^ to a revision parameter means the first parent of that
153 commit object. ^<n> means the <n>th parent (i.e. <rev>^ is
154 equivalent to <rev>^1). As a special rule, <rev>^0 means the commit
155 itself and is used when <rev> is the object name of a tag object
156 that refers to a commit object.
157 <rev>~[<n>], e.g. HEAD~, master~3
159 A suffix ~ to a revision parameter means the first parent of that
160 commit object. A suffix ~<n> to a revision parameter means the
161 commit object that is the <n>th generation ancestor of the named
162 commit object, following only the first parents. I.e. <rev>~3 is
163 equivalent to <rev>^^^ which is equivalent to <rev>^1^1^1. See
164 below for an illustration of the usage of this form.
165 <rev>^{<type>}, e.g. v0.99.8^{commit}
167 A suffix ^ followed by an object type name enclosed in brace pair
168 means dereference the object at <rev> recursively until an object
169 of type <type> is found or the object cannot be dereferenced
170 anymore (in which case, barf). For example, if <rev> is a
171 commit-ish, <rev>^{commit} describes the corresponding commit
172 object. Similarly, if <rev> is a tree-ish, <rev>^{tree} describes
173 the corresponding tree object. <rev>^0 is a short-hand for
174 <rev>^{commit}.
175 <rev>^{object} can be used to make sure <rev> names an object that
177 exists, without requiring <rev> to be a tag, and without
178 dereferencing <rev>; because a tag is already an object, it does
179 not have to be dereferenced even once to get to an object.
180 <rev>^{tag} can be used to ensure that <rev> identifies an existing
182 tag object.
183 <rev>^{}, e.g. v0.99.8^{}
185 A suffix ^ followed by an empty brace pair means the object could
186 be a tag, and dereference the tag recursively until a non-tag
187 object is found.
188 <rev>^{/<text>}, e.g. HEAD^{/fix nasty bug}
190 A suffix ^ to a revision parameter, followed by a brace pair that
191 contains a text led by a slash, is the same as the :/fix nasty bug
192 syntax below except that it returns the youngest matching commit
193 which is reachable from the <rev> before ^.
194 :/<text>, e.g. :/fix nasty bug
196 A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a text, names a commit
197 whose commit message matches the specified regular expression. This
198 name returns the youngest matching commit which is reachable from
199 any ref, including HEAD. The regular expression can match any part
200 of the commit message. To match messages starting with a string,
201 one can use e.g. :/^foo. The special sequence :/! is reserved for
202 modifiers to what is matched. :/!-foo performs a negative match,
203 while :/!!foo matches a literal ! character, followed by foo. Any
204 other sequence beginning with :/! is reserved for now. Depending
205 on the given text, the shell’s word splitting rules might require
206 additional quoting.
207 <rev>:<path>, e.g. HEAD:README, master:./README
209 A suffix : followed by a path names the blob or tree at the given
210 path in the tree-ish object named by the part before the colon. A
211 path starting with ./ or ../ is relative to the current working
212 directory. The given path will be converted to be relative to the
213 working tree’s root directory. This is most useful to address a
214 blob or tree from a commit or tree that has the same tree structure
215 as the working tree.
216 :[<n>:]<path>, e.g. :0:README, :README
218 A colon, optionally followed by a stage number (0 to 3) and a
219 colon, followed by a path, names a blob object in the index at the
220 given path. A missing stage number (and the colon that follows it)
221 names a stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage 1 is the common
222 ancestor, stage 2 is the target branch’s version (typically the
223 current branch), and stage 3 is the version from the branch which
224 is being merged.
225 Here is an illustration, by Jon Loeliger. Both commit nodes B and C are
227 parents of commit node A. Parent commits are ordered left-to-right.
228 G H I J
230 \ / \ /
231 D E F
232 \ | / \
233 \ | / |
234 \|/ |
235 B C
236 \ /
237 \ /
238 A
239 A = = A^0
241 B = A^ = A^1 = A~1
242 C = = A^2
243 D = A^^ = A^1^1 = A~2
244 E = B^2 = A^^2
245 F = B^3 = A^^3
246 G = A^^^ = A^1^1^1 = A~3
247 H = D^2 = B^^2 = A^^^2 = A~2^2
248 I = F^ = B^3^ = A^^3^
249 J = F^2 = B^3^2 = A^^3^2
250
252 History traversing commands such as git log operate on a set of
253 commits, not just a single commit.
254 For these commands, specifying a single revision, using the notation
256 described in the previous section, means the set of commits reachable
257 from the given commit.
258 Specifying several revisions means the set of commits reachable from
260 any of the given commits.
261 A commit’s reachable set is the commit itself and the commits in its
263 ancestry chain.
264 There are several notations to specify a set of connected commits
266 (called a "revision range"), illustrated below.
267 Commit Exclusions
269 ^<rev> (caret) Notation
270 To exclude commits reachable from a commit, a prefix ^ notation is
271 used. E.g. ^r1 r2 means commits reachable from r2 but exclude the
272 ones reachable from r1 (i.e. r1 and its ancestors).
273 Dotted Range Notations
275 The .. (two-dot) Range Notation
276 The ^r1 r2 set operation appears so often that there is a shorthand
277 for it. When you have two commits r1 and r2 (named according to the
278 syntax explained in SPECIFYING REVISIONS above), you can ask for
279 commits that are reachable from r2 excluding those that are
280 reachable from r1 by ^r1 r2 and it can be written as r1..r2.
281 The ... (three-dot) Symmetric Difference Notation
283 A similar notation r1...r2 is called symmetric difference of r1 and
284 r2 and is defined as r1 r2 --not $(git merge-base --all r1 r2). It
285 is the set of commits that are reachable from either one of r1
286 (left side) or r2 (right side) but not from both.
287 In these two shorthand notations, you can omit one end and let it
289 default to HEAD. For example, origin.. is a shorthand for origin..HEAD
290 and asks "What did I do since I forked from the origin branch?"
291 Similarly, ..origin is a shorthand for HEAD..origin and asks "What did
292 the origin do since I forked from them?" Note that .. would mean
293 HEAD..HEAD which is an empty range that is both reachable and
294 unreachable from HEAD.
295 Commands that are specifically designed to take two distinct ranges
297 (e.g. "git range-diff R1 R2" to compare two ranges) do exist, but they
298 are exceptions. Unless otherwise noted, all "git" commands that operate
299 on a set of commits work on a single revision range. In other words,
300 writing two "two-dot range notation" next to each other, e.g.
301 $ git log A..B C..D
303 does not specify two revision ranges for most commands. Instead it will
305 name a single connected set of commits, i.e. those that are reachable
306 from either B or D but are reachable from neither A or C. In a linear
307 history like this:
308 ---A---B---o---o---C---D
310 because A and B are reachable from C, the revision range specified by
312 these two dotted ranges is a single commit D.
313 Other <rev>^ Parent Shorthand Notations
315 Three other shorthands exist, particularly useful for merge commits,
316 for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its parent commits.
317 The r1^@ notation means all parents of r1.
319 The r1^! notation includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents.
321 By itself, this notation denotes the single commit r1.
322 The <rev>^-[<n>] notation includes <rev> but excludes the <n>th parent
324 (i.e. a shorthand for <rev>^<n>..<rev>), with <n> = 1 if not given.
325 This is typically useful for merge commits where you can just pass
326 <commit>^- to get all the commits in the branch that was merged in
327 merge commit <commit> (including <commit> itself).
328 While <rev>^<n> was about specifying a single commit parent, these
330 three notations also consider its parents. For example you can say
331 HEAD^2^@, however you cannot say HEAD^@^2.
332
334 <rev>
335 Include commits that are reachable from <rev> (i.e. <rev> and its
336 ancestors).
337 ^<rev>
339 Exclude commits that are reachable from <rev> (i.e. <rev> and its
340 ancestors).
341 <rev1>..<rev2>
343 Include commits that are reachable from <rev2> but exclude those
344 that are reachable from <rev1>. When either <rev1> or <rev2> is
345 omitted, it defaults to HEAD.
346 <rev1>...<rev2>
348 Include commits that are reachable from either <rev1> or <rev2> but
349 exclude those that are reachable from both. When either <rev1> or
350 <rev2> is omitted, it defaults to HEAD.
351 <rev>^@, e.g. HEAD^@
353 A suffix ^ followed by an at sign is the same as listing all
354 parents of <rev> (meaning, include anything reachable from its
355 parents, but not the commit itself).
356 <rev>^!, e.g. HEAD^!
358 A suffix ^ followed by an exclamation mark is the same as giving
359 commit <rev> and then all its parents prefixed with ^ to exclude
360 them (and their ancestors).
361 <rev>^-<n>, e.g. HEAD^-, HEAD^-2
363 Equivalent to <rev>^<n>..<rev>, with <n> = 1 if not given.
364 Here are a handful of examples using the Loeliger illustration above,
366 with each step in the notation’s expansion and selection carefully
367 spelt out:
368 Args Expanded arguments Selected commits
370 D G H D
371 D F G H I J D F
372 ^G D H D
373 ^D B E I J F B
374 ^D B C E I J F B C
375 C I J F C
376 B..C = ^B C C
377 B...C = B ^F C G H D E B C
378 B^- = B^..B
379 = ^B^1 B E I J F B
380 C^@ = C^1
381 = F I J F
382 B^@ = B^1 B^2 B^3
383 = D E F D G H E F I J
384 C^! = C ^C^@
385 = C ^C^1
386 = C ^F C
387 B^! = B ^B^@
388 = B ^B^1 ^B^2 ^B^3
389 = B ^D ^E ^F B
390 F^! D = F ^I ^J D G H D F
391
393 git-rev-parse(1)
394
396 Part of the git(1) suite
397Git 2.36.1 2022-05-05 GITREVISIONS(7)