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 enables parent rewriting, see 'History Simplification' below. 99+ 100This implies the '--topo-order' option by default, but the 101'--date-order' option may also be specified. 102 103ifdef::git-rev-list[] 104--count:: 105 Print a number stating how many commits would have been 106 listed, and suppress all other output. When used together 107 with '--left-right', instead print the counts for left and 108 right commits, separated by a tab. 109endif::git-rev-list[] 110 111 112ifndef::git-rev-list[] 113Diff Formatting 114~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 115 116Below are listed options that control the formatting of diff output. 117Some of them are specific to linkgit:git-rev-list[1], however other diff 118options may be given. See linkgit:git-diff-files[1] for more options. 119 120-c:: 121 122 With this option, diff output for a merge commit 123 shows the differences from each of the parents to the merge result 124 simultaneously instead of showing pairwise diff between a parent 125 and the result one at a time. Furthermore, it lists only files 126 which were modified from all parents. 127 128--cc:: 129 130 This flag implies the '-c' options and further compresses the 131 patch output by omitting uninteresting hunks whose contents in 132 the parents have only two variants and the merge result picks 133 one of them without modification. 134 135-m:: 136 137 This flag makes the merge commits show the full diff like 138 regular commits; for each merge parent, a separate log entry 139 and diff is generated. An exception is that only diff against 140 the first parent is shown when '--first-parent' option is given; 141 in that case, the output represents the changes the merge 142 brought _into_ the then-current branch. 143 144-r:: 145 146 Show recursive diffs. 147 148-t:: 149 150 Show the tree objects in the diff output. This implies '-r'. 151 152-s:: 153 Suppress diff output. 154endif::git-rev-list[] 155 156Commit Limiting 157~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 158 159Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the 160special notations explained in the description, additional commit 161limiting may be applied. 162 163-- 164 165-n 'number':: 166--max-count=<number>:: 167 168 Limit the number of commits output. 169 170--skip=<number>:: 171 172 Skip 'number' commits before starting to show the commit output. 173 174--since=<date>:: 175--after=<date>:: 176 177 Show commits more recent than a specific date. 178 179--until=<date>:: 180--before=<date>:: 181 182 Show commits older than a specific date. 183 184ifdef::git-rev-list[] 185--max-age=<timestamp>:: 186--min-age=<timestamp>:: 187 188 Limit the commits output to specified time range. 189endif::git-rev-list[] 190 191--author=<pattern>:: 192--committer=<pattern>:: 193 194 Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer 195 header lines that match the specified pattern (regular expression). 196 197--grep=<pattern>:: 198 199 Limit the commits output to ones with log message that 200 matches the specified pattern (regular expression). 201 202--all-match:: 203 Limit the commits output to ones that match all given --grep, 204 --author and --committer instead of ones that match at least one. 205 206-i:: 207--regexp-ignore-case:: 208 209 Match the regexp limiting patterns without regard to letters case. 210 211-E:: 212--extended-regexp:: 213 214 Consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions 215 instead of the default basic regular expressions. 216 217-F:: 218--fixed-strings:: 219 220 Consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don't interpret 221 pattern as a regular expression). 222 223--remove-empty:: 224 225 Stop when a given path disappears from the tree. 226 227--merges:: 228 229 Print only merge commits. 230 231--no-merges:: 232 233 Do not print commits with more than one parent. 234 235--first-parent:: 236 Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge 237 commit. This option can give a better overview when 238 viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch, 239 because merges into a topic branch tend to be only about 240 adjusting to updated upstream from time to time, and 241 this option allows you to ignore the individual commits 242 brought in to your history by such a merge. 243 244--not:: 245 246 Reverses the meaning of the '{caret}' prefix (or lack thereof) 247 for all following revision specifiers, up to the next '--not'. 248 249--all:: 250 251 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/` are listed on the 252 command line as '<commit>'. 253 254--branches[=<pattern>]:: 255 256 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/heads` are listed 257 on the command line as '<commit>'. If '<pattern>' is given, limit 258 branches to ones matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks '?', 259 '*', or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 260 261--tags[=<pattern>]:: 262 263 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/tags` are listed 264 on the command line as '<commit>'. If '<pattern>' is given, limit 265 tags to ones matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks '?', '*', 266 or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 267 268--remotes[=<pattern>]:: 269 270 Pretend as if all the refs in `refs/remotes` are listed 271 on the command line as '<commit>'. If '<pattern>' is given, limit 272 remote-tracking branches to ones matching given shell glob. 273 If pattern lacks '?', '*', or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 274 275--glob=<glob-pattern>:: 276 Pretend as if all the refs matching shell glob '<glob-pattern>' 277 are listed on the command line as '<commit>'. Leading 'refs/', 278 is automatically prepended if missing. If pattern lacks '?', '*', 279 or '[', '/*' at the end is implied. 280 281 282ifndef::git-rev-list[] 283--bisect:: 284 285 Pretend as if the bad bisection ref `refs/bisect/bad` 286 was listed and as if it was followed by `--not` and the good 287 bisection refs `refs/bisect/good-*` on the command 288 line. 289endif::git-rev-list[] 290 291--stdin:: 292 293 In addition to the '<commit>' listed on the command 294 line, read them from the standard input. If a '--' separator is 295 seen, stop reading commits and start reading paths to limit the 296 result. 297 298ifdef::git-rev-list[] 299--quiet:: 300 301 Don't print anything to standard output. This form 302 is primarily meant to allow the caller to 303 test the exit status to see if a range of objects is fully 304 connected (or not). It is faster than redirecting stdout 305 to /dev/null as the output does not have to be formatted. 306endif::git-rev-list[] 307 308--cherry-pick:: 309 310 Omit any commit that introduces the same change as 311 another commit on the "other side" when the set of 312 commits are limited with symmetric difference. 313+ 314For example, if you have two branches, `A` and `B`, a usual way 315to list all commits on only one side of them is with 316`--left-right`, like the example above in the description of 317that option. It however shows the commits that were cherry-picked 318from the other branch (for example, "3rd on b" may be cherry-picked 319from branch A). With this option, such pairs of commits are 320excluded from the output. 321 322--left-only:: 323--right-only:: 324 325 List only commits on the respective side of a symmetric range, 326 i.e. only those which would be marked `<` resp. `>` by 327 `--left-right`. 328+ 329For example, `--cherry-pick --right-only A...B` omits those 330commits from `B` which are in `A` or are patch-equivalent to a commit in 331`A`. In other words, this lists the `{plus}` commits from `git cherry A B`. 332More precisely, `--cherry-pick --right-only --no-merges` gives the exact 333list. 334 335-g:: 336--walk-reflogs:: 337 338 Instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk 339 reflog entries from the most recent one to older ones. 340 When this option is used you cannot specify commits to 341 exclude (that is, '{caret}commit', 'commit1..commit2', 342 nor 'commit1\...commit2' notations cannot be used). 343+ 344With '\--pretty' format other than oneline (for obvious reasons), 345this causes the output to have two extra lines of information 346taken from the reflog. By default, 'commit@\{Nth}' notation is 347used in the output. When the starting commit is specified as 348'commit@\{now}', output also uses 'commit@\{timestamp}' notation 349instead. Under '\--pretty=oneline', the commit message is 350prefixed with this information on the same line. 351This option cannot be combined with '\--reverse'. 352See also linkgit:git-reflog[1]. 353 354--merge:: 355 356 After a failed merge, show refs that touch files having a 357 conflict and don't exist on all heads to merge. 358 359--boundary:: 360 361 Output uninteresting commits at the boundary, which are usually 362 not shown. 363 364-- 365 366History Simplification 367~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 368 369Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example the 370commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of 371'History Simplification', one part is selecting the commits and the other 372is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the history. 373 374The following options select the commits to be shown: 375 376<paths>:: 377 378 Commits modifying the given <paths> are selected. 379 380--simplify-by-decoration:: 381 382 Commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected. 383 384Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history. 385 386The following options affect the way the simplification is performed: 387 388Default mode:: 389 390 Simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the 391 final state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side 392 branches if the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches 393 with the same content) 394 395--full-history:: 396 397 As the default mode but does not prune some history. 398 399--dense:: 400 401 Only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a 402 meaningful history. 403 404--sparse:: 405 406 All commits in the simplified history are shown. 407 408--simplify-merges:: 409 410 Additional option to '--full-history' to remove some needless 411 merges from the resulting history, as there are no selected 412 commits contributing to this merge. 413 414--ancestry-path:: 415 416 When given a range of commits to display (e.g. 'commit1..commit2' 417 or 'commit2 {caret}commit1'), only display commits that exist 418 directly on the ancestry chain between the 'commit1' and 419 'commit2', i.e. commits that are both descendants of 'commit1', 420 and ancestors of 'commit2'. 421 422A more detailed explanation follows. 423 424Suppose you specified `foo` as the <paths>. We shall call commits 425that modify `foo` !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff 426filtered for `foo`, they look different and equal, respectively.) 427 428In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to 429illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume 430that you are filtering for a file `foo` in this commit graph: 431----------------------------------------------------------------------- 432 .-A---M---N---O---P 433 / / / / / 434 I B C D E 435 \ / / / / 436 `-------------' 437----------------------------------------------------------------------- 438The horizontal line of history A--P is taken to be the first parent of 439each merge. The commits are: 440 441* `I` is the initial commit, in which `foo` exists with contents 442 "asdf", and a file `quux` exists with contents "quux". Initial 443 commits are compared to an empty tree, so `I` is !TREESAME. 444 445* In `A`, `foo` contains just "foo". 446 447* `B` contains the same change as `A`. Its merge `M` is trivial and 448 hence TREESAME to all parents. 449 450* `C` does not change `foo`, but its merge `N` changes it to "foobar", 451 so it is not TREESAME to any parent. 452 453* `D` sets `foo` to "baz". Its merge `O` combines the strings from 454 `N` and `D` to "foobarbaz"; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent. 455 456* `E` changes `quux` to "xyzzy", and its merge `P` combines the 457 strings to "quux xyzzy". Despite appearing interesting, `P` is 458 TREESAME to all parents. 459 460'rev-list' walks backwards through history, including or excluding 461commits based on whether '\--full-history' and/or parent rewriting 462(via '\--parents' or '\--children') are used. The following settings 463are available. 464 465Default mode:: 466 467 Commits are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent 468 (though this can be changed, see '\--sparse' below). If the 469 commit was a merge, and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow 470 only that parent. (Even if there are several TREESAME 471 parents, follow only one of them.) Otherwise, follow all 472 parents. 473+ 474This results in: 475+ 476----------------------------------------------------------------------- 477 .-A---N---O 478 / / / 479 I---------D 480----------------------------------------------------------------------- 481+ 482Note how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is 483available, removed `B` from consideration entirely. `C` was 484considered via `N`, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an 485empty tree, so `I` is !TREESAME. 486+ 487Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that does 488not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have shown the 489parent lines. 490 491--full-history without parent rewriting:: 492 493 This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow 494 all parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. 495 Even if more than one side of the merge has commits that are 496 included, this does not imply that the merge itself is! In 497 the example, we get 498+ 499----------------------------------------------------------------------- 500 I A B N D O 501----------------------------------------------------------------------- 502+ 503`P` and `M` were excluded because they are TREESAME to a parent. `E`, 504`C` and `B` were all walked, but only `B` was !TREESAME, so the others 505do not appear. 506+ 507Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to talk 508about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so we show 509them disconnected. 510 511--full-history with parent rewriting:: 512 513 Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME 514 (though this can be changed, see '\--sparse' below). 515+ 516Merges are always included. However, their parent list is rewritten: 517Along each parent, prune away commits that are not included 518themselves. This results in 519+ 520----------------------------------------------------------------------- 521 .-A---M---N---O---P 522 / / / / / 523 I B / D / 524 \ / / / / 525 `-------------' 526----------------------------------------------------------------------- 527+ 528Compare to '\--full-history' without rewriting above. Note that `E` 529was pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was 530rewritten to contain `E`'s parent `I`. The same happened for `C` and 531`N`. Note also that `P` was included despite being TREESAME. 532 533In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME 534affects inclusion: 535 536--dense:: 537 538 Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME 539 to any parent. 540 541--sparse:: 542 543 All commits that are walked are included. 544+ 545Note that without '\--full-history', this still simplifies merges: if 546one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the other 547sides of the merge are never walked. 548 549--simplify-merges:: 550 551 First, build a history graph in the same way that 552 '\--full-history' with parent rewriting does (see above). 553+ 554Then simplify each commit `C` to its replacement `C'` in the final 555history according to the following rules: 556+ 557-- 558* Set `C'` to `C`. 559+ 560* Replace each parent `P` of `C'` with its simplification `P'`. In 561 the process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents, and 562 remove duplicates. 563+ 564* If after this parent rewriting, `C'` is a root or merge commit (has 565 zero or >1 parents), a boundary commit, or !TREESAME, it remains. 566 Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent. 567-- 568+ 569The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to 570'\--full-history' with parent rewriting. The example turns into: 571+ 572----------------------------------------------------------------------- 573 .-A---M---N---O 574 / / / 575 I B D 576 \ / / 577 `---------' 578----------------------------------------------------------------------- 579+ 580Note the major differences in `N` and `P` over '\--full-history': 581+ 582-- 583* `N`'s parent list had `I` removed, because it is an ancestor of the 584 other parent `M`. Still, `N` remained because it is !TREESAME. 585+ 586* `P`'s parent list similarly had `I` removed. `P` was then 587 removed completely, because it had one parent and is TREESAME. 588-- 589 590Finally, there is a fifth simplification mode available: 591 592--ancestry-path:: 593 594 Limit the displayed commits to those directly on the ancestry 595 chain between the "from" and "to" commits in the given commit 596 range. I.e. only display commits that are ancestor of the "to" 597 commit, and descendants of the "from" commit. 598+ 599As an example use case, consider the following commit history: 600+ 601----------------------------------------------------------------------- 602 D---E-------F 603 / \ \ 604 B---C---G---H---I---J 605 / \ 606 A-------K---------------L--M 607----------------------------------------------------------------------- 608+ 609A regular 'D..M' computes the set of commits that are ancestors of `M`, 610but excludes the ones that are ancestors of `D`. This is useful to see 611what happened to the history leading to `M` since `D`, in the sense 612that "what does `M` have that did not exist in `D`". The result in this 613example would be all the commits, except `A` and `B` (and `D` itself, 614of course). 615+ 616When we want to find out what commits in `M` are contaminated with the 617bug introduced by `D` and need fixing, however, we might want to view 618only the subset of 'D..M' that are actually descendants of `D`, i.e. 619excluding `C` and `K`. This is exactly what the '\--ancestry-path' 620option does. Applied to the 'D..M' range, it results in: 621+ 622----------------------------------------------------------------------- 623 E-------F 624 \ \ 625 G---H---I---J 626 \ 627 L--M 628----------------------------------------------------------------------- 629 630The '\--simplify-by-decoration' option allows you to view only the 631big picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits 632that are not referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME 633(in other words, kept after history simplification rules described 634above) if (1) they are referenced by tags, or (2) they change the 635contents of the paths given on the command line. All other 636commits are marked as TREESAME (subject to be simplified away). 637 638ifdef::git-rev-list[] 639Bisection Helpers 640~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 641 642--bisect:: 643 644Limit output to the one commit object which is roughly halfway between 645included and excluded commits. Note that the bad bisection ref 646`refs/bisect/bad` is added to the included commits (if it 647exists) and the good bisection refs `refs/bisect/good-*` are 648added to the excluded commits (if they exist). Thus, supposing there 649are no refs in `refs/bisect/`, if 650 651----------------------------------------------------------------------- 652 $ git rev-list --bisect foo ^bar ^baz 653----------------------------------------------------------------------- 654 655outputs 'midpoint', the output of the two commands 656 657----------------------------------------------------------------------- 658 $ git rev-list foo ^midpoint 659 $ git rev-list midpoint ^bar ^baz 660----------------------------------------------------------------------- 661 662would be of roughly the same length. Finding the change which 663introduces a regression is thus reduced to a binary search: repeatedly 664generate and test new 'midpoint's until the commit chain is of length 665one. 666 667--bisect-vars:: 668 669This calculates the same as `--bisect`, except that refs in 670`refs/bisect/` are not used, and except that this outputs 671text ready to be eval'ed by the shell. These lines will assign the 672name of the midpoint revision to the variable `bisect_rev`, and the 673expected number of commits to be tested after `bisect_rev` is tested 674to `bisect_nr`, the expected number of commits to be tested if 675`bisect_rev` turns out to be good to `bisect_good`, the expected 676number of commits to be tested if `bisect_rev` turns out to be bad to 677`bisect_bad`, and the number of commits we are bisecting right now to 678`bisect_all`. 679 680--bisect-all:: 681 682This outputs all the commit objects between the included and excluded 683commits, ordered by their distance to the included and excluded 684commits. Refs in `refs/bisect/` are not used. The farthest 685from them is displayed first. (This is the only one displayed by 686`--bisect`.) 687+ 688This is useful because it makes it easy to choose a good commit to 689test when you want to avoid to test some of them for some reason (they 690may not compile for example). 691+ 692This option can be used along with `--bisect-vars`, in this case, 693after all the sorted commit objects, there will be the same text as if 694`--bisect-vars` had been used alone. 695endif::git-rev-list[] 696 697 698Commit Ordering 699~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 700 701By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order. 702 703--topo-order:: 704 705 This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e. 706 descendant commits are shown before their parents). 707 708--date-order:: 709 710 This option is similar to '--topo-order' in the sense that no 711 parent comes before all of its children, but otherwise things 712 are still ordered in the commit timestamp order. 713 714--reverse:: 715 716 Output the commits in reverse order. 717 Cannot be combined with '\--walk-reflogs'. 718 719Object Traversal 720~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 721 722These options are mostly targeted for packing of git repositories. 723 724--objects:: 725 726 Print the object IDs of any object referenced by the listed 727 commits. '--objects foo ^bar' thus means "send me 728 all object IDs which I need to download if I have the commit 729 object 'bar', but not 'foo'". 730 731--objects-edge:: 732 733 Similar to '--objects', but also print the IDs of excluded 734 commits prefixed with a "-" character. This is used by 735 linkgit:git-pack-objects[1] to build "thin" pack, which records 736 objects in deltified form based on objects contained in these 737 excluded commits to reduce network traffic. 738 739--unpacked:: 740 741 Only useful with '--objects'; print the object IDs that are not 742 in packs. 743 744--no-walk:: 745 746 Only show the given revs, but do not traverse their ancestors. 747 748--do-walk:: 749 750 Overrides a previous --no-walk.