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 unique sequence of minimal, non-linear 21epochs and maximal, linear epochs. Non-linear epochs are then linearised by sorting them into merge order, which 22is described below. 23 24Maximal, linear epochs correspond to periods of sequential development. Minimal, non-linear epochs 25correspond to periods of divergent development followed by a converging merge. The theory of epochs is described 26in more detail at link:http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/[http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/]. 27 28The merge order for a non-linear epoch is defined as a linearisation for which the following invariants are true: 29 30 1. if a commit P is reachable from commit N, commit P sorts after commit N in the linearised list. 31 2. if Pi and Pj are any two parents of a merge M (with i < j), then any commit N, such that N is reachable from Pj 32 but not reachable from Pi, sorts before all commits reachable from Pi. 33 34Invariant 1 states that later commits appear before earlier commits they are derived from. 35 36Invariant 2 states that commits unique to "later" parents in a merge, appear before all commits from "earlier" parents of 37a merge. 38 39If *--show-breaks* is specified, each item of the list is output with a 2-character prefix consisting of one of: 40 (|), (^), (=) followed by a space. 41Commits marked with (=) represent the boundaries of minimal, non-linear epochs and correspond either to the start of a period of divergent development or to the end of such a period. 42Commits marked with (|) are direct parents of commits immediately preceding the marked commit in the list. 43Commits marked with (^) are not parents of the immediately preceding commit. These "breaks" represent necessary discontinuities implied by trying to represent an arbtirary DAG in a linear form. 44 45*--show-breaks* is only valid if *--merge-order* is also specified. 46 47Author 48------ 49Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 50 51Original *--merge-order* logic by Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com> 52 53Documentation 54-------------- 55Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 56 57GIT 58--- 59Part of the link:git.html[git] suite 60