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 ] [ *--bisect* ] [ *--pretty* ] [ *--objects* ] [ *--merge-order* [ *--show-breaks* ] ] <commit> [ <commit> ...] [ ^<commit> ...] 13 14DESCRIPTION 15----------- 16Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order starting at the 17given commit(s), taking ancestry relationship into account. This is 18useful to produce human-readable log output. 19 20Commits which are stated with a preceding '^' cause listing to stop at 21that point. Their parents are implied. "git-rev-list foo bar ^baz" thus 22means "list all the commits which are included in 'foo' and 'bar', but 23not in 'baz'". 24 25If *--pretty* is specified, print the contents of the commit changesets 26in human-readable form. 27 28The *--objects* flag causes 'git-rev-list' to print the object IDs of 29any object referenced by the listed commits. 'git-rev-list --objects foo 30^bar' thus means "send me all object IDs which I need to download if 31I have the commit object 'bar', but not 'foo'". 32 33The *--bisect* flag limits output to the one commit object which is 34roughly halfway between the included and excluded commits. Thus, 35if 'git-rev-list --bisect foo ^bar 36^baz' outputs 'midpoint', the output 37of 'git-rev-list foo ^midpoint' and 'git-rev-list midpoint 38^bar 39^baz' 40would be of roughly the same length. Finding the change which introduces 41a regression is thus reduced to a binary search: repeatedly generate and 42test new 'midpoint's until the commit chain is of length one. 43 44If *--merge-order* is specified, the commit history is decomposed into a 45unique sequence of minimal, non-linear epochs and maximal, linear epochs. 46Non-linear epochs are then linearised by sorting them into merge order, which 47is described below. 48 49Maximal, linear epochs correspond to periods of sequential development. 50Minimal, non-linear epochs correspond to periods of divergent development 51followed by a converging merge. The theory of epochs is described in more 52detail at 53link:http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/[http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/]. 54 55The merge order for a non-linear epoch is defined as a linearisation for which 56the following invariants are true: 57 58 1. if a commit P is reachable from commit N, commit P sorts after commit N 59 in the linearised list. 60 2. if Pi and Pj are any two parents of a merge M (with i < j), then any 61 commit N, such that N is reachable from Pj but not reachable from Pi, 62 sorts before all commits reachable from Pi. 63 64Invariant 1 states that later commits appear before earlier commits they are 65derived from. 66 67Invariant 2 states that commits unique to "later" parents in a merge, appear 68before all commits from "earlier" parents of a merge. 69 70If *--show-breaks* is specified, each item of the list is output with a 712-character prefix consisting of one of: (|), (^), (=) followed by a space. 72 73Commits marked with (=) represent the boundaries of minimal, non-linear epochs 74and correspond either to the start of a period of divergent development or to 75the end of such a period. 76 77Commits marked with (|) are direct parents of commits immediately preceding 78the marked commit in the list. 79 80Commits marked with (^) are not parents of the immediately preceding commit. 81These "breaks" represent necessary discontinuities implied by trying to 82represent an arbtirary DAG in a linear form. 83 84*--show-breaks* is only valid if *--merge-order* is also specified. 85 86Author 87------ 88Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> 89 90Original *--merge-order* logic by Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com> 91 92Documentation 93-------------- 94Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 95 96GIT 97--- 98Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite 99