1Commit Formatting 2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3 4ifdef::git-rev-list[] 5Using these options, linkgit:git-rev-list[1] will act similar to the 6more specialized family of commit log tools: linkgit:git-log[1], 7linkgit:git-show[1], and linkgit:git-whatchanged[1] 8endif::git-rev-list[] 9 10include::pretty-options.txt[] 11 12--relative-date:: 13 14 Synonym for `--date=relative`. 15 16--date=(relative|local|default|iso|rfc|short|raw):: 17 18 Only takes effect for dates shown in human-readable format, such 19 as when using "--pretty". `log.date` config variable sets a default 20 value for log command's --date option. 21+ 22`--date=relative` shows dates relative to the current time, 23e.g. "2 hours ago". 24+ 25`--date=local` shows timestamps in user's local timezone. 26+ 27`--date=iso` (or `--date=iso8601`) shows timestamps in ISO 8601 format. 28+ 29`--date=rfc` (or `--date=rfc2822`) shows timestamps in RFC 2822 30format, often found in E-mail messages. 31+ 32`--date=short` shows only date but not time, in `YYYY-MM-DD` format. 33+ 34`--date=raw` shows the date in the internal raw git format `%s %z` format. 35+ 36`--date=default` shows timestamps in the original timezone 37(either committer's or author's). 38 39ifdef::git-rev-list[] 40--header:: 41 42 Print the contents of the commit in raw-format; each record is 43 separated with a NUL character. 44endif::git-rev-list[] 45 46--parents:: 47 48 Print also the parents of the commit (in the form "commit parent..."). 49 Also enables parent rewriting, see 'History Simplification' below. 50 51--children:: 52 53 Print also the children of the commit (in the form "commit child..."). 54 Also enables parent rewriting, see 'History Simplification' below. 55 56ifdef::git-rev-list[] 57--timestamp:: 58 Print the raw commit timestamp. 59endif::git-rev-list[] 60 61--left-right:: 62 63 Mark which side of a symmetric diff a commit is reachable from. 64 Commits from the left side are prefixed with `<` and those from 65 the right with `>`. If combined with `--boundary`, those 66 commits are prefixed with `-`. 67+ 68For example, if you have this topology: 69+ 70----------------------------------------------------------------------- 71 y---b---b branch B 72 / \ / 73 / . 74 / / \ 75 o---x---a---a branch A 76----------------------------------------------------------------------- 77+ 78you would get an output like this: 79+ 80----------------------------------------------------------------------- 81 $ git rev-list --left-right --boundary --pretty=oneline A...B 82 83 >bbbbbbb... 3rd on b 84 >bbbbbbb... 2nd on b 85 <aaaaaaa... 3rd on a 86 <aaaaaaa... 2nd on a 87 -yyyyyyy... 1st on b 88 -xxxxxxx... 1st on a 89----------------------------------------------------------------------- 90 91--graph:: 92 93 Draw a text-based graphical representation of the commit history 94 on the left hand side of the output. This may cause extra lines 95 to be printed in between commits, in order for the graph history 96 to be drawn properly. 97+ 98This implies the '--topo-order' option by default, but the 99'--date-order' option may also be specified. 100 101ifdef::git-rev-list[] 102--count:: 103 Print a number stating how many commits would have been 104 listed, and suppress all other output. When used together 105 with '--left-right', instead print the counts for left and 106 right commits, separated by a tab. 107endif::git-rev-list[] 108 109 110ifndef::git-rev-list[] 111Diff Formatting 112~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 113 114Below are listed options that control the formatting of diff output. 115Some of them are specific to linkgit:git-rev-list[1], however other diff 116options may be given. See linkgit:git-diff-files[1] for more options. 117 118-c:: 119 120 With this option, diff output for a merge commit 121 shows the differences from each of the parents to the merge result 122 simultaneously instead of showing pairwise diff between a parent 123 and the result one at a time. Furthermore, it lists only files 124 which were modified from all parents. 125 126--cc:: 127 128 This flag implies the '-c' options and further compresses the 129 patch output by omitting uninteresting hunks whose contents in 130 the parents have only two variants and the merge result picks 131 one of them without modification. 132 133-m:: 134 135 This flag makes the merge commits show the full diff like 136 regular commits; for each merge parent, a separate log entry 137 and diff is generated. An exception is that only diff against 138 the first parent is shown when '--first-parent' option is given; 139 in that case, the output represents the changes the merge 140 brought _into_ the then-current branch. 141 142-r:: 143 144 Show recursive diffs. 145 146-t:: 147 148 Show the tree objects in the diff output. This implies '-r'. 149endif::git-rev-list[] 150 151Commit Limiting 152~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 153 154Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the 155special notations explained in the description, additional commit 156limiting may be applied. 157 158-- 159 160-n 'number':: 161--max-count=<number>:: 162 163 Limit the number of commits output. 164 165--skip=<number>:: 166 167 Skip 'number' commits before starting to show the commit output. 168 169--since=<date>:: 170--after=<date>:: 171 172 Show commits more recent than a specific date. 173 174--until=<date>:: 175--before=<date>:: 176 177 Show commits older than a specific date. 178 179ifdef::git-rev-list[] 180--max-age=<timestamp>:: 181--min-age=<timestamp>:: 182 183 Limit the commits output to specified time range. 184endif::git-rev-list[] 185 186--author=<pattern>:: 187--committer=<pattern>:: 188 189 Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer 190 header lines that match the specified pattern (regular expression). 191 192--grep=<pattern>:: 193 194 Limit the commits output to ones with log message that 195 matches the specified pattern (regular expression). 196 197--all-match:: 198 Limit the commits output to ones that match all given --grep, 199 --author and --committer instead of ones that match at least one. 200 201-i:: 202--regexp-ignore-case:: 203 204 Match the regexp limiting patterns without regard to letters case. 205 206-E:: 207--extended-regexp:: 208 209 Consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions 210 instead of the default basic regular expressions. 211 212-F:: 213--fixed-strings:: 214 215 Consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don't interpret 216 pattern as a regular expression). 217 218--remove-empty:: 219 220 Stop when a given path disappears from the tree. 221 222--merges:: 223 224 Print only merge commits. 225 226--no-merges:: 227 228 Do not print commits with more than one parent. 229 230--first-parent:: 231 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge 232 commit. This option can give a better overview when 233 viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch, 234 because merges into a topic branch tend to be only about 235 adjusting to updated upstream from time to time, and 236 this option allows you to ignore the individual commits 237 brought in to your history by such a merge. 238 239--not:: 240 241 Reverses the meaning of the '{caret}' prefix (or lack thereof) 242 for all following revision specifiers, up to the next '--not'. 243 244--all:: 245 246 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/` are listed on the 247 command line as '<commit>'. 248 249--branches[=<pattern>]:: 250 251 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/heads` are listed 252 on the command line as '<commit>'. If '<pattern>' is given, limit 253 branches to ones matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks '?', 254 '*', or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 255 256--tags[=<pattern>]:: 257 258 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/tags` are listed 259 on the command line as '<commit>'. If '<pattern>' is given, limit 260 tags to ones matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks '?', '*', 261 or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 262 263--remotes[=<pattern>]:: 264 265 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/remotes` are listed 266 on the command line as '<commit>'. If '<pattern>' is given, limit 267 remote tracking branches to ones matching given shell glob. 268 If pattern lacks '?', '*', or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 269 270--glob=<glob-pattern>:: 271 Pretend as if all the refs matching shell glob '<glob-pattern>' 272 are listed on the command line as '<commit>'. Leading 'refs/', 273 is automatically prepended if missing. If pattern lacks '?', '*', 274 or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 275 276 277ifndef::git-rev-list[] 278--bisect:: 279 280 Pretend as if the bad bisection ref `refs/bisect/bad` 281 was listed and as if it was followed by `--not` and the good 282 bisection refs `refs/bisect/good-*` on the command 283 line. 284endif::git-rev-list[] 285 286--stdin:: 287 288 In addition to the '<commit>' listed on the command 289 line, read them from the standard input. If a '--' separator is 290 seen, stop reading commits and start reading paths to limit the 291 result. 292 293ifdef::git-rev-list[] 294--quiet:: 295 296 Don't print anything to standard output. This form 297 is primarily meant to allow the caller to 298 test the exit status to see if a range of objects is fully 299 connected (or not). It is faster than redirecting stdout 300 to /dev/null as the output does not have to be formatted. 301endif::git-rev-list[] 302 303--cherry-pick:: 304 305 Omit any commit that introduces the same change as 306 another commit on the "other side" when the set of 307 commits are limited with symmetric difference. 308+ 309For example, if you have two branches, `A` and `B`, a usual way 310to list all commits on only one side of them is with 311`--left-right`, like the example above in the description of 312that option. It however shows the commits that were cherry-picked 313from the other branch (for example, "3rd on b" may be cherry-picked 314from branch A). With this option, such pairs of commits are 315excluded from the output. 316 317-g:: 318--walk-reflogs:: 319 320 Instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk 321 reflog entries from the most recent one to older ones. 322 When this option is used you cannot specify commits to 323 exclude (that is, '{caret}commit', 'commit1..commit2', 324 nor 'commit1\...commit2' notations cannot be used). 325+ 326With '\--pretty' format other than oneline (for obvious reasons), 327this causes the output to have two extra lines of information 328taken from the reflog. By default, 'commit@\{Nth}' notation is 329used in the output. When the starting commit is specified as 330'commit@\{now}', output also uses 'commit@\{timestamp}' notation 331instead. Under '\--pretty=oneline', the commit message is 332prefixed with this information on the same line. 333This option cannot be combined with '\--reverse'. 334See also linkgit:git-reflog[1]. 335 336--merge:: 337 338 After a failed merge, show refs that touch files having a 339 conflict and don't exist on all heads to merge. 340 341--boundary:: 342 343 Output uninteresting commits at the boundary, which are usually 344 not shown. 345 346-- 347 348History Simplification 349~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 350 351Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example the 352commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of 353'History Simplification', one part is selecting the commits and the other 354is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the history. 355 356The following options select the commits to be shown: 357 358<paths>:: 359 360 Commits modifying the given <paths> are selected. 361 362--simplify-by-decoration:: 363 364 Commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected. 365 366Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history. 367 368The following options affect the way the simplification is performed: 369 370Default mode:: 371 372 Simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the 373 final state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side 374 branches if the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches 375 with the same content) 376 377--full-history:: 378 379 As the default mode but does not prune some history. 380 381--dense:: 382 383 Only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a 384 meaningful history. 385 386--sparse:: 387 388 All commits in the simplified history are shown. 389 390--simplify-merges:: 391 392 Additional option to '--full-history' to remove some needless 393 merges from the resulting history, as there are no selected 394 commits contributing to this merge. 395 396--ancestry-path:: 397 398 When given a range of commits to display (e.g. 'commit1..commit2' 399 or 'commit2 {caret}commit1'), only display commits that exist 400 directly on the ancestry chain between the 'commit1' and 401 'commit2', i.e. commits that are both descendants of 'commit1', 402 and ancestors of 'commit2'. 403 404A more detailed explanation follows. 405 406Suppose you specified `foo` as the <paths>. We shall call commits 407that modify `foo` !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff 408filtered for `foo`, they look different and equal, respectively.) 409 410In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to 411illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume 412that you are filtering for a file `foo` in this commit graph: 413----------------------------------------------------------------------- 414 .-A---M---N---O---P 415 / / / / / 416 I B C D E 417 \ / / / / 418 `-------------' 419----------------------------------------------------------------------- 420The horizontal line of history A--P is taken to be the first parent of 421each merge. The commits are: 422 423* `I` is the initial commit, in which `foo` exists with contents 424 "asdf", and a file `quux` exists with contents "quux". Initial 425 commits are compared to an empty tree, so `I` is !TREESAME. 426 427* In `A`, `foo` contains just "foo". 428 429* `B` contains the same change as `A`. Its merge `M` is trivial and 430 hence TREESAME to all parents. 431 432* `C` does not change `foo`, but its merge `N` changes it to "foobar", 433 so it is not TREESAME to any parent. 434 435* `D` sets `foo` to "baz". Its merge `O` combines the strings from 436 `N` and `D` to "foobarbaz"; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent. 437 438* `E` changes `quux` to "xyzzy", and its merge `P` combines the 439 strings to "quux xyzzy". Despite appearing interesting, `P` is 440 TREESAME to all parents. 441 442'rev-list' walks backwards through history, including or excluding 443commits based on whether '\--full-history' and/or parent rewriting 444(via '\--parents' or '\--children') are used. The following settings 445are available. 446 447Default mode:: 448 449 Commits are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent 450 (though this can be changed, see '\--sparse' below). If the 451 commit was a merge, and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow 452 only that parent. (Even if there are several TREESAME 453 parents, follow only one of them.) Otherwise, follow all 454 parents. 455+ 456This results in: 457+ 458----------------------------------------------------------------------- 459 .-A---N---O 460 / / / 461 I---------D 462----------------------------------------------------------------------- 463+ 464Note how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is 465available, removed `B` from consideration entirely. `C` was 466considered via `N`, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an 467empty tree, so `I` is !TREESAME. 468+ 469Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that does 470not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have shown the 471parent lines. 472 473--full-history without parent rewriting:: 474 475 This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow 476 all parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. 477 Even if more than one side of the merge has commits that are 478 included, this does not imply that the merge itself is! In 479 the example, we get 480+ 481----------------------------------------------------------------------- 482 I A B N D O 483----------------------------------------------------------------------- 484+ 485`P` and `M` were excluded because they are TREESAME to a parent. `E`, 486`C` and `B` were all walked, but only `B` was !TREESAME, so the others 487do not appear. 488+ 489Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to talk 490about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so we show 491them disconnected. 492 493--full-history with parent rewriting:: 494 495 Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME 496 (though this can be changed, see '\--sparse' below). 497+ 498Merges are always included. However, their parent list is rewritten: 499Along each parent, prune away commits that are not included 500themselves. This results in 501+ 502----------------------------------------------------------------------- 503 .-A---M---N---O---P 504 / / / / / 505 I B / D / 506 \ / / / / 507 `-------------' 508----------------------------------------------------------------------- 509+ 510Compare to '\--full-history' without rewriting above. Note that `E` 511was pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was 512rewritten to contain `E`'s parent `I`. The same happened for `C` and 513`N`. Note also that `P` was included despite being TREESAME. 514 515In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME 516affects inclusion: 517 518--dense:: 519 520 Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME 521 to any parent. 522 523--sparse:: 524 525 All commits that are walked are included. 526+ 527Note that without '\--full-history', this still simplifies merges: if 528one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the other 529sides of the merge are never walked. 530 531--simplify-merges:: 532 533 First, build a history graph in the same way that 534 '\--full-history' with parent rewriting does (see above). 535+ 536Then simplify each commit `C` to its replacement `C'` in the final 537history according to the following rules: 538+ 539-- 540* Set `C'` to `C`. 541+ 542* Replace each parent `P` of `C'` with its simplification `P'`. In 543 the process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents, and 544 remove duplicates. 545+ 546* If after this parent rewriting, `C'` is a root or merge commit (has 547 zero or >1 parents), a boundary commit, or !TREESAME, it remains. 548 Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent. 549-- 550+ 551The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to 552'\--full-history' with parent rewriting. The example turns into: 553+ 554----------------------------------------------------------------------- 555 .-A---M---N---O 556 / / / 557 I B D 558 \ / / 559 `---------' 560----------------------------------------------------------------------- 561+ 562Note the major differences in `N` and `P` over '\--full-history': 563+ 564-- 565* `N`'s parent list had `I` removed, because it is an ancestor of the 566 other parent `M`. Still, `N` remained because it is !TREESAME. 567+ 568* `P`'s parent list similarly had `I` removed. `P` was then 569 removed completely, because it had one parent and is TREESAME. 570-- 571 572Finally, there is a fifth simplification mode available: 573 574--ancestry-path:: 575 576 Limit the displayed commits to those directly on the ancestry 577 chain between the "from" and "to" commits in the given commit 578 range. I.e. only display commits that are ancestor of the "to" 579 commit, and descendants of the "from" commit. 580+ 581As an example use case, consider the following commit history: 582+ 583----------------------------------------------------------------------- 584 D---E-------F 585 / \ \ 586 B---C---G---H---I---J 587 / \ 588 A-------K---------------L--M 589----------------------------------------------------------------------- 590+ 591A regular 'D..M' computes the set of commits that are ancestors of `M`, 592but excludes the ones that are ancestors of `D`. This is useful to see 593what happened to the history leading to `M` since `D`, in the sense 594that "what does `M` have that did not exist in `D`". The result in this 595example would be all the commits, except `A` and `B` (and `D` itself, 596of course). 597+ 598When we want to find out what commits in `M` are contaminated with the 599bug introduced by `D` and need fixing, however, we might want to view 600only the subset of 'D..M' that are actually descendants of `D`, i.e. 601excluding `C` and `K`. This is exactly what the '\--ancestry-path' 602option does. Applied to the 'D..M' range, it results in: 603+ 604----------------------------------------------------------------------- 605 E-------F 606 \ \ 607 G---H---I---J 608 \ 609 L--M 610----------------------------------------------------------------------- 611 612The '\--simplify-by-decoration' option allows you to view only the 613big picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits 614that are not referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME 615(in other words, kept after history simplification rules described 616above) if (1) they are referenced by tags, or (2) they change the 617contents of the paths given on the command line. All other 618commits are marked as TREESAME (subject to be simplified away). 619 620ifdef::git-rev-list[] 621Bisection Helpers 622~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 623 624--bisect:: 625 626Limit output to the one commit object which is roughly halfway between 627included and excluded commits. Note that the bad bisection ref 628`refs/bisect/bad` is added to the included commits (if it 629exists) and the good bisection refs `refs/bisect/good-*` are 630added to the excluded commits (if they exist). Thus, supposing there 631are no refs in `refs/bisect/`, if 632 633----------------------------------------------------------------------- 634 $ git rev-list --bisect foo ^bar ^baz 635----------------------------------------------------------------------- 636 637outputs 'midpoint', the output of the two commands 638 639----------------------------------------------------------------------- 640 $ git rev-list foo ^midpoint 641 $ git rev-list midpoint ^bar ^baz 642----------------------------------------------------------------------- 643 644would be of roughly the same length. Finding the change which 645introduces a regression is thus reduced to a binary search: repeatedly 646generate and test new 'midpoint's until the commit chain is of length 647one. 648 649--bisect-vars:: 650 651This calculates the same as `--bisect`, except that refs in 652`refs/bisect/` are not used, and except that this outputs 653text ready to be eval'ed by the shell. These lines will assign the 654name of the midpoint revision to the variable `bisect_rev`, and the 655expected number of commits to be tested after `bisect_rev` is tested 656to `bisect_nr`, the expected number of commits to be tested if 657`bisect_rev` turns out to be good to `bisect_good`, the expected 658number of commits to be tested if `bisect_rev` turns out to be bad to 659`bisect_bad`, and the number of commits we are bisecting right now to 660`bisect_all`. 661 662--bisect-all:: 663 664This outputs all the commit objects between the included and excluded 665commits, ordered by their distance to the included and excluded 666commits. Refs in `refs/bisect/` are not used. The farthest 667from them is displayed first. (This is the only one displayed by 668`--bisect`.) 669+ 670This is useful because it makes it easy to choose a good commit to 671test when you want to avoid to test some of them for some reason (they 672may not compile for example). 673+ 674This option can be used along with `--bisect-vars`, in this case, 675after all the sorted commit objects, there will be the same text as if 676`--bisect-vars` had been used alone. 677endif::git-rev-list[] 678 679 680Commit Ordering 681~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 682 683By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order. 684 685--topo-order:: 686 687 This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e. 688 descendant commits are shown before their parents). 689 690--date-order:: 691 692 This option is similar to '--topo-order' in the sense that no 693 parent comes before all of its children, but otherwise things 694 are still ordered in the commit timestamp order. 695 696--reverse:: 697 698 Output the commits in reverse order. 699 Cannot be combined with '\--walk-reflogs'. 700 701Object Traversal 702~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 703 704These options are mostly targeted for packing of git repositories. 705 706--objects:: 707 708 Print the object IDs of any object referenced by the listed 709 commits. '--objects foo ^bar' thus means "send me 710 all object IDs which I need to download if I have the commit 711 object 'bar', but not 'foo'". 712 713--objects-edge:: 714 715 Similar to '--objects', but also print the IDs of excluded 716 commits prefixed with a "-" character. This is used by 717 linkgit:git-pack-objects[1] to build "thin" pack, which records 718 objects in deltified form based on objects contained in these 719 excluded commits to reduce network traffic. 720 721--unpacked:: 722 723 Only useful with '--objects'; print the object IDs that are not 724 in packs. 725 726--no-walk:: 727 728 Only show the given revs, but do not traverse their ancestors. 729 730--do-walk:: 731 732 Overrides a previous --no-walk.