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