By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order.
---topo-order::
+--date-order::
+ Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but
+ otherwise show commits in the commit timestamp order.
- This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e.
- descendant commits are shown before their parents).
+--topo-order::
+ Show no parents before all of its children are shown, and
+ avoid showing commits on multiple lines of history
+ intermixed.
++
+For example, in a commit history like this:
++
+----------------------------------------------------------------
---date-order::
+ ---1----2----4----7
+ \ \
+ 3----5----6----8---
- This option is similar to '--topo-order' in the sense that no
- parent comes before all of its children, but otherwise things
- are still ordered in the commit timestamp order.
+----------------------------------------------------------------
++
+where the numbers denote the order of commit timestamps, `git
+rev-list` and friends with `--date-order` show the commits in the
+timestamp order: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.
++
+With `--topo-order`, they would show 8 6 5 3 7 4 2 1 (or 8 7 4 2 6 5
+3 1); some older commits are shown before newer ones in order to
+avoid showing the commits from two parallel development track mixed
+together.
--reverse::