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 the parents of the commit. Also enables parent 49 rewriting, see 'History Simplification' below. 50 51--children:: 52 53 Print the children of the commit. Also enables parent 54 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 101ifndef::git-rev-list[] 102Diff Formatting 103~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 104 105Below are listed options that control the formatting of diff output. 106Some of them are specific to linkgit:git-rev-list[1], however other diff 107options may be given. See linkgit:git-diff-files[1] for more options. 108 109-c:: 110 111 This flag changes the way a merge commit is displayed. It shows 112 the differences from each of the parents to the merge result 113 simultaneously instead of showing pairwise diff between a parent 114 and the result one at a time. Furthermore, it lists only files 115 which were modified from all parents. 116 117--cc:: 118 119 This flag implies the '-c' options and further compresses the 120 patch output by omitting uninteresting hunks whose contents in 121 the parents have only two variants and the merge result picks 122 one of them without modification. 123 124-r:: 125 126 Show recursive diffs. 127 128-t:: 129 130 Show the tree objects in the diff output. This implies '-r'. 131endif::git-rev-list[] 132 133Commit Limiting 134~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 135 136Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the 137special notations explained in the description, additional commit 138limiting may be applied. 139 140-- 141 142-n 'number':: 143--max-count=<number>:: 144 145 Limit the number of commits output. 146 147--skip=<number>:: 148 149 Skip 'number' commits before starting to show the commit output. 150 151--since=<date>:: 152--after=<date>:: 153 154 Show commits more recent than a specific date. 155 156--until=<date>:: 157--before=<date>:: 158 159 Show commits older than a specific date. 160 161ifdef::git-rev-list[] 162--max-age=<timestamp>:: 163--min-age=<timestamp>:: 164 165 Limit the commits output to specified time range. 166endif::git-rev-list[] 167 168--author=<pattern>:: 169--committer=<pattern>:: 170 171 Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer 172 header lines that match the specified pattern (regular expression). 173 174--grep=<pattern>:: 175 176 Limit the commits output to ones with log message that 177 matches the specified pattern (regular expression). 178 179--all-match:: 180 Limit the commits output to ones that match all given --grep, 181 --author and --committer instead of ones that match at least one. 182 183-i:: 184--regexp-ignore-case:: 185 186 Match the regexp limiting patterns without regard to letters case. 187 188-E:: 189--extended-regexp:: 190 191 Consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions 192 instead of the default basic regular expressions. 193 194-F:: 195--fixed-strings:: 196 197 Consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don't interpret 198 pattern as a regular expression). 199 200--remove-empty:: 201 202 Stop when a given path disappears from the tree. 203 204--merges:: 205 206 Print only merge commits. 207 208--no-merges:: 209 210 Do not print commits with more than one parent. 211 212--first-parent:: 213 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge 214 commit. This option can give a better overview when 215 viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch, 216 because merges into a topic branch tend to be only about 217 adjusting to updated upstream from time to time, and 218 this option allows you to ignore the individual commits 219 brought in to your history by such a merge. 220 221--not:: 222 223 Reverses the meaning of the '{caret}' prefix (or lack thereof) 224 for all following revision specifiers, up to the next '--not'. 225 226--all:: 227 228 Pretend as if all the refs in `$GIT_DIR/refs/` are listed on the 229 command line as '<commit>'. 230 231--branches:: 232 233 Pretend as if all the refs in `$GIT_DIR/refs/heads` are listed 234 on the command line as '<commit>'. 235 236--tags:: 237 238 Pretend as if all the refs in `$GIT_DIR/refs/tags` are listed 239 on the command line as '<commit>'. 240 241--remotes:: 242 243 Pretend as if all the refs in `$GIT_DIR/refs/remotes` are listed 244 on the command line as '<commit>'. 245 246ifdef::git-rev-list[] 247--stdin:: 248 249 In addition to the '<commit>' listed on the command 250 line, read them from the standard input. 251 252--quiet:: 253 254 Don't print anything to standard output. This form 255 is primarily meant to allow the caller to 256 test the exit status to see if a range of objects is fully 257 connected (or not). It is faster than redirecting stdout 258 to /dev/null as the output does not have to be formatted. 259endif::git-rev-list[] 260 261--cherry-pick:: 262 263 Omit any commit that introduces the same change as 264 another commit on the "other side" when the set of 265 commits are limited with symmetric difference. 266+ 267For example, if you have two branches, `A` and `B`, a usual way 268to list all commits on only one side of them is with 269`--left-right`, like the example above in the description of 270that option. It however shows the commits that were cherry-picked 271from the other branch (for example, "3rd on b" may be cherry-picked 272from branch A). With this option, such pairs of commits are 273excluded from the output. 274 275-g:: 276--walk-reflogs:: 277 278 Instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk 279 reflog entries from the most recent one to older ones. 280 When this option is used you cannot specify commits to 281 exclude (that is, '{caret}commit', 'commit1..commit2', 282 nor 'commit1...commit2' notations cannot be used). 283+ 284With '\--pretty' format other than oneline (for obvious reasons), 285this causes the output to have two extra lines of information 286taken from the reflog. By default, 'commit@\{Nth}' notation is 287used in the output. When the starting commit is specified as 288'commit@\{now}', output also uses 'commit@\{timestamp}' notation 289instead. Under '\--pretty=oneline', the commit message is 290prefixed with this information on the same line. 291This option cannot be combined with '\--reverse'. 292See also linkgit:git-reflog[1]. 293 294--merge:: 295 296 After a failed merge, show refs that touch files having a 297 conflict and don't exist on all heads to merge. 298 299--boundary:: 300 301 Output uninteresting commits at the boundary, which are usually 302 not shown. 303 304-- 305 306History Simplification 307~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 308 309Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example the 310commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of 311'History Simplification', one part is selecting the commits and the other 312is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the history. 313 314The following options select the commits to be shown: 315 316<paths>:: 317 318 Commits modifying the given <paths> are selected. 319 320--simplify-by-decoration:: 321 322 Commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected. 323 324Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history. 325 326The following options affect the way the simplification is performed: 327 328Default mode:: 329 330 Simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the 331 final state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side 332 branches if the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches 333 with the same content) 334 335--full-history:: 336 337 As the default mode but does not prune some history. 338 339--dense:: 340 341 Only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a 342 meaningful history. 343 344--sparse:: 345 346 All commits in the simplified history are shown. 347 348--simplify-merges:: 349 350 Additional option to '--full-history' to remove some needless 351 merges from the resulting history, as there are no selected 352 commits contributing to this merge. 353 354A more detailed explanation follows. 355 356Suppose you specified `foo` as the <paths>. We shall call commits 357that modify `foo` !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff 358filtered for `foo`, they look different and equal, respectively.) 359 360In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to 361illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume 362that you are filtering for a file `foo` in this commit graph: 363----------------------------------------------------------------------- 364 .-A---M---N---O---P 365 / / / / / 366 I B C D E 367 \ / / / / 368 `-------------' 369----------------------------------------------------------------------- 370The horizontal line of history A--P is taken to be the first parent of 371each merge. The commits are: 372 373* `I` is the initial commit, in which `foo` exists with contents 374 "asdf", and a file `quux` exists with contents "quux". Initial 375 commits are compared to an empty tree, so `I` is !TREESAME. 376 377* In `A`, `foo` contains just "foo". 378 379* `B` contains the same change as `A`. Its merge `M` is trivial and 380 hence TREESAME to all parents. 381 382* `C` does not change `foo`, but its merge `N` changes it to "foobar", 383 so it is not TREESAME to any parent. 384 385* `D` sets `foo` to "baz". Its merge `O` combines the strings from 386 `N` and `D` to "foobarbaz"; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent. 387 388* `E` changes `quux` to "xyzzy", and its merge `P` combines the 389 strings to "quux xyzzy". Despite appearing interesting, `P` is 390 TREESAME to all parents. 391 392'rev-list' walks backwards through history, including or excluding 393commits based on whether '\--full-history' and/or parent rewriting 394(via '\--parents' or '\--children') are used. The following settings 395are available. 396 397Default mode:: 398 399 Commits are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent 400 (though this can be changed, see '\--sparse' below). If the 401 commit was a merge, and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow 402 only that parent. (Even if there are several TREESAME 403 parents, follow only one of them.) Otherwise, follow all 404 parents. 405+ 406This results in: 407+ 408----------------------------------------------------------------------- 409 .-A---N---O 410 / / 411 I---------D 412----------------------------------------------------------------------- 413+ 414Note how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is 415available, removed `B` from consideration entirely. `C` was 416considered via `N`, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an 417empty tree, so `I` is !TREESAME. 418+ 419Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that does 420not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have shown the 421parent lines. 422 423--full-history without parent rewriting:: 424 425 This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow 426 all parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. 427 Even if more than one side of the merge has commits that are 428 included, this does not imply that the merge itself is! In 429 the example, we get 430+ 431----------------------------------------------------------------------- 432 I A B N D O 433----------------------------------------------------------------------- 434+ 435`P` and `M` were excluded because they are TREESAME to a parent. `E`, 436`C` and `B` were all walked, but only `B` was !TREESAME, so the others 437do not appear. 438+ 439Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to talk 440about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so we show 441them disconnected. 442 443--full-history with parent rewriting:: 444 445 Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME 446 (though this can be changed, see '\--sparse' below). 447+ 448Merges are always included. However, their parent list is rewritten: 449Along each parent, prune away commits that are not included 450themselves. This results in 451+ 452----------------------------------------------------------------------- 453 .-A---M---N---O---P 454 / / / / / 455 I B / D / 456 \ / / / / 457 `-------------' 458----------------------------------------------------------------------- 459+ 460Compare to '\--full-history' without rewriting above. Note that `E` 461was pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was 462rewritten to contain `E`'s parent `I`. The same happened for `C` and 463`N`. Note also that `P` was included despite being TREESAME. 464 465In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME 466affects inclusion: 467 468--dense:: 469 470 Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME 471 to any parent. 472 473--sparse:: 474 475 All commits that are walked are included. 476+ 477Note that without '\--full-history', this still simplifies merges: if 478one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the other 479sides of the merge are never walked. 480 481Finally, there is a fourth simplification mode available: 482 483--simplify-merges:: 484 485 First, build a history graph in the same way that 486 '\--full-history' with parent rewriting does (see above). 487+ 488Then simplify each commit `C` to its replacement `C'` in the final 489history according to the following rules: 490+ 491-- 492* Set `C'` to `C`. 493+ 494* Replace each parent `P` of `C'` with its simplification `P'`. In 495 the process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents, and 496 remove duplicates. 497+ 498* If after this parent rewriting, `C'` is a root or merge commit (has 499 zero or >1 parents), a boundary commit, or !TREESAME, it remains. 500 Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent. 501-- 502+ 503The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to 504'\--full-history' with parent rewriting. The example turns into: 505+ 506----------------------------------------------------------------------- 507 .-A---M---N---O 508 / / / 509 I B D 510 \ / / 511 `---------' 512----------------------------------------------------------------------- 513+ 514Note the major differences in `N` and `P` over '\--full-history': 515+ 516-- 517* `N`'s parent list had `I` removed, because it is an ancestor of the 518 other parent `M`. Still, `N` remained because it is !TREESAME. 519+ 520* `P`'s parent list similarly had `I` removed. `P` was then 521 removed completely, because it had one parent and is TREESAME. 522-- 523 524The '\--simplify-by-decoration' option allows you to view only the 525big picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits 526that are not referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME 527(in other words, kept after history simplification rules described 528above) if (1) they are referenced by tags, or (2) they change the 529contents of the paths given on the command line. All other 530commits are marked as TREESAME (subject to be simplified away). 531 532ifdef::git-rev-list[] 533Bisection Helpers 534~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 535 536--bisect:: 537 538Limit output to the one commit object which is roughly halfway between 539the included and excluded commits. Thus, if 540 541----------------------------------------------------------------------- 542 $ git rev-list --bisect foo ^bar ^baz 543----------------------------------------------------------------------- 544 545outputs 'midpoint', the output of the two commands 546 547----------------------------------------------------------------------- 548 $ git rev-list foo ^midpoint 549 $ git rev-list midpoint ^bar ^baz 550----------------------------------------------------------------------- 551 552would be of roughly the same length. Finding the change which 553introduces a regression is thus reduced to a binary search: repeatedly 554generate and test new 'midpoint's until the commit chain is of length 555one. 556 557--bisect-vars:: 558 559This calculates the same as `--bisect`, but outputs text ready 560to be eval'ed by the shell. These lines will assign the name of 561the midpoint revision to the variable `bisect_rev`, and the 562expected number of commits to be tested after `bisect_rev` is 563tested to `bisect_nr`, the expected number of commits to be 564tested if `bisect_rev` turns out to be good to `bisect_good`, 565the expected number of commits to be tested if `bisect_rev` 566turns out to be bad to `bisect_bad`, and the number of commits 567we are bisecting right now to `bisect_all`. 568 569--bisect-all:: 570 571This outputs all the commit objects between the included and excluded 572commits, ordered by their distance to the included and excluded 573commits. The farthest from them is displayed first. (This is the only 574one displayed by `--bisect`.) 575+ 576This is useful because it makes it easy to choose a good commit to 577test when you want to avoid to test some of them for some reason (they 578may not compile for example). 579+ 580This option can be used along with `--bisect-vars`, in this case, 581after all the sorted commit objects, there will be the same text as if 582`--bisect-vars` had been used alone. 583endif::git-rev-list[] 584 585 586Commit Ordering 587~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 588 589By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order. 590 591--topo-order:: 592 593 This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e. 594 descendant commits are shown before their parents). 595 596--date-order:: 597 598 This option is similar to '--topo-order' in the sense that no 599 parent comes before all of its children, but otherwise things 600 are still ordered in the commit timestamp order. 601 602--reverse:: 603 604 Output the commits in reverse order. 605 Cannot be combined with '\--walk-reflogs'. 606 607Object Traversal 608~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 609 610These options are mostly targeted for packing of git repositories. 611 612--objects:: 613 614 Print the object IDs of any object referenced by the listed 615 commits. '--objects foo ^bar' thus means "send me 616 all object IDs which I need to download if I have the commit 617 object 'bar', but not 'foo'". 618 619--objects-edge:: 620 621 Similar to '--objects', but also print the IDs of excluded 622 commits prefixed with a "-" character. This is used by 623 linkgit:git-pack-objects[1] to build "thin" pack, which records 624 objects in deltified form based on objects contained in these 625 excluded commits to reduce network traffic. 626 627--unpacked:: 628 629 Only useful with '--objects'; print the object IDs that are not 630 in packs. 631 632--no-walk:: 633 634 Only show the given revs, but do not traverse their ancestors. 635 636--do-walk:: 637 638 Overrides a previous --no-walk.