Documentation / git-rev-list.txton commit [PATCH] Tidy up some rev-list-related stuff (17ebe97)
   1git-rev-list(1)
   2===============
   3v0.1, May 2005
   4
   5NAME
   6----
   7git-rev-list - Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order
   8
   9
  10SYNOPSIS
  11--------
  12'git-rev-list' [ *--max-count*=number ] [ *--max-age*=timestamp ] [ *--min-age*=timestamp ] [ *--merge-order* [ *--show-breaks* ] ] <commit>
  13
  14DESCRIPTION
  15-----------
  16Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order starting at the
  17given commit, taking ancestry relationship into account.  This is
  18useful to produce human-readable log output.
  19
  20If *--merge-order* is specified, the commit history is decomposed into a
  21unique sequence of minimal, non-linear epochs and maximal, linear epochs.
  22Non-linear epochs are then linearised by sorting them into merge order, which
  23is described below.
  24
  25Maximal, linear epochs correspond to periods of sequential development.
  26Minimal, non-linear epochs correspond to periods of divergent development
  27followed by a converging merge. The theory of epochs is described in more
  28detail at
  29link:http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/[http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/].
  30
  31The merge order for a non-linear epoch is defined as a linearisation for which
  32the following invariants are true:
  33
  34    1. if a commit P is reachable from commit N, commit P sorts after commit N
  35       in the linearised list.
  36    2. if Pi and Pj are any two parents of a merge M (with i < j), then any
  37       commit N, such that N is reachable from Pj but not reachable from Pi,
  38       sorts before all commits reachable from Pi.
  39
  40Invariant 1 states that later commits appear before earlier commits they are
  41derived from.
  42
  43Invariant 2 states that commits unique to "later" parents in a merge, appear
  44before all commits from "earlier" parents of a merge.
  45
  46If *--show-breaks* is specified, each item of the list is output with a
  472-character prefix consisting of one of: (|), (^), (=) followed by a space.
  48
  49Commits marked with (=) represent the boundaries of minimal, non-linear epochs
  50and correspond either to the start of a period of divergent development or to
  51the end of such a period.
  52
  53Commits marked with (|) are direct parents of commits immediately preceding
  54the marked commit in the list.
  55
  56Commits marked with (^) are not parents of the immediately preceding commit.
  57These "breaks" represent necessary discontinuities implied by trying to
  58represent an arbtirary DAG in a linear form.
  59
  60*--show-breaks* is only valid if *--merge-order* is also specified.
  61
  62Author
  63------
  64Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
  65
  66Original *--merge-order* logic by Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com>
  67
  68Documentation
  69--------------
  70Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
  71
  72GIT
  73---
  74Part of the link:git.html[git] suite
  75