git-blame(1) Git Manual git-blame(1)
NAME
git-blame - Show what revision and author last modified each line of a
file
SYNOPSIS
git blame [-c] [-b] [-l] [--root] [-t] [-f] [-n] [-s] [-e] [-p] [-w] [--incremental]
[-L <range>] [-S <revs-file>] [-M] [-C] [-C] [-C] [--since=<date>]
[--ignore-rev <rev>] [--ignore-revs-file <file>]
[--color-lines] [--color-by-age] [--progress] [--abbrev=<n>]
[ --contents <file> ] [<rev> | --reverse <rev>..<rev>] [--] <file>
DESCRIPTION
Annotates each line in the given file with information from the revision
which last modified the line. Optionally, start annotating from the given
revision.
When specified one or more times, -L restricts annotation to the
requested lines.
The origin of lines is automatically followed across whole-file renames
(currently there is no option to turn the rename-following off). To
follow lines moved from one file to another, or to follow lines that were
copied and pasted from another file, etc., see the -C and -M options.
The report does not tell you anything about lines which have been deleted
or replaced; you need to use a tool such as git diff or the "pickaxe"
interface briefly mentioned in the following paragraph.
Apart from supporting file annotation, Git also supports searching the
development history for when a code snippet occurred in a change. This
makes it possible to track when a code snippet was added to a file, moved
or copied between files, and eventually deleted or replaced. It works by
searching for a text string in the diff. A small example of the pickaxe
interface that searches for blame_usage:
$ git log --pretty=oneline -S'blame_usage'
5040f17eba15504bad66b14a645bddd9b015ebb7 blame -S <ancestry-file>
ea4c7f9bf69e781dd0cd88d2bccb2bf5cc15c9a7 git-blame: Make the output
OPTIONS
-b
Show blank SHA-1 for boundary commits. This can also be controlled
via the blame.blankBoundary config option.
--root
Do not treat root commits as boundaries. This can also be controlled
via the blame.showRoot config option.
--show-stats
Include additional statistics at the end of blame output.
-L <start>,<end>, -L :<funcname>
Annotate only the line range given by <start>,<end>, or by the
function name regex <funcname>. May be specified multiple times.
Overlapping ranges are allowed.
<start> and <end> are optional. -L <start> or -L <start>, spans from
<start> to end of file. -L ,<end> spans from start of file to <end>.
<start> and <end> can take one of these forms:
o <number>
If <start> or <end> is a number, it specifies an absolute line
number (lines count from 1).
o /<regex>/
This form will use the first line matching the given POSIX
<regex>. If <start> is a regex, it will search from the end of
the previous -L range, if any, otherwise from the start of file.
If <start> is ^/<regex>/, it will search from the start of file.
If <end> is a regex, it will search starting at the line given by
<start>.
o +<offset> or -<offset>
This is only valid for <end> and will specify a number of lines
before or after the line given by <start>.
If :<funcname> is given in place of <start> and <end>, it is a
regular expression that denotes the range from the first funcname
line that matches <funcname>, up to the next funcname line.
:<funcname> searches from the end of the previous -L range, if any,
otherwise from the start of file. ^:<funcname> searches from the
start of file. The function names are determined in the same way as
git diff works out patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom
hunk-header in gitattributes(5)).
-l
Show long rev (Default: off).
-t
Show raw timestamp (Default: off).
-S <revs-file>
Use revisions from <revs-file> instead of calling git-rev-list(1).
--reverse <start>..<end>
Walk history forward instead of backward. Instead of showing the
revision in which a line appeared, this shows the last revision in
which a line has existed. This requires a range of revision like
<start>..<end> where the path to blame exists in <start>. git blame
--reverse <start> is taken as git blame --reverse <start>..HEAD for
convenience.
--first-parent
Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. This
option can be used to determine when a line was introduced to a
particular integration branch, rather than when it was introduced to
the history overall.
-p, --porcelain
Show in a format designed for machine consumption.
--line-porcelain
Show the porcelain format, but output commit information for each
line, not just the first time a commit is referenced. Implies
--porcelain.
--incremental
Show the result incrementally in a format designed for machine
consumption.
--encoding=<encoding>
Specify the encoding used to output author names and commit
summaries. Setting it to none makes blame output unconverted data.
For more information see the discussion about encoding in the git-
log(1) manual page.
--contents <file>
Annotate using the contents from <file>, starting from <rev> if it is
specified, and HEAD otherwise. You may specify - to make the command
read from the standard input for the file contents.
--date <format>
Specify the format used to output dates. If --date is not provided,
the value of the blame.date config variable is used. If the
blame.date config variable is also not set, the iso format is used.
For supported values, see the discussion of the --date option at git-
log(1).
--progress, --no-progress
Enable progress reporting on the standard error stream even if not
attached to a terminal. By default, progress status is reported only
when it is attached. You can't use --progress together with
--porcelain or --incremental.
-M[<num>]
Detect moved or copied lines within a file. When a commit moves or
copies a block of lines (e.g. the original file has A and then B, and
the commit changes it to B and then A), the traditional blame
algorithm notices only half of the movement and typically blames the
lines that were moved up (i.e. B) to the parent and assigns blame to
the lines that were moved down (i.e. A) to the child commit. With
this option, both groups of lines are blamed on the parent by running
extra passes of inspection.
<num> is optional, but it is the lower bound on the number of
alphanumeric characters that Git must detect as moving/copying within
a file for it to associate those lines with the parent commit. The
default value is 20.
-C[<num>]
In addition to -M, detect lines moved or copied from other files that
were modified in the same commit. This is useful when you reorganize
your program and move code around across files. When this option is
given twice, the command additionally looks for copies from other
files in the commit that creates the file. When this option is given
three times, the command additionally looks for copies from other
files in any commit.
<num> is optional, but it is the lower bound on the number of
alphanumeric characters that Git must detect as moving/copying
between files for it to associate those lines with the parent commit.
And the default value is 40. If there are more than one -C options
given, the <num> argument of the last -C will take effect.
--ignore-rev <rev>
Ignore changes made by the revision when assigning blame, as if the
change never happened. Lines that were changed or added by an ignored
commit will be blamed on the previous commit that changed that line
or nearby lines. This option may be specified multiple times to
ignore more than one revision. If the blame.markIgnoredLines config
option is set, then lines that were changed by an ignored commit and
attributed to another commit will be marked with a ? in the blame
output. If the blame.markUnblamableLines config option is set, then
those lines touched by an ignored commit that we could not attribute
to another revision are marked with a *. In the porcelain modes, we
print ignored and unblamable on a newline respectively.
--ignore-revs-file <file>
Ignore revisions listed in <file>, which must be in the same format
as an fsck.skipList. This option may be repeated, and these files
will be processed after any files specified with the
blame.ignoreRevsFile config option. An empty file name, "", will
clear the list of revs from previously processed files.
--color-lines
Color line annotations in the default format differently if they come
from the same commit as the preceding line. This makes it easier to
distinguish code blocks introduced by different commits. The color
defaults to cyan and can be adjusted using the
color.blame.repeatedLines config option.
--color-by-age
Color line annotations depending on the age of the line in the
default format. The color.blame.highlightRecent config option
controls what color is used for each range of age.
-h
Show help message.
-c
Use the same output mode as git-annotate(1) (Default: off).
--score-debug
Include debugging information related to the movement of lines
between files (see -C) and lines moved within a file (see -M). The
first number listed is the score. This is the number of alphanumeric
characters detected as having been moved between or within files.
This must be above a certain threshold for git blame to consider
those lines of code to have been moved.
-f, --show-name
Show the filename in the original commit. By default the filename is
shown if there is any line that came from a file with a different
name, due to rename detection.
-n, --show-number
Show the line number in the original commit (Default: off).
-s
Suppress the author name and timestamp from the output.
-e, --show-email
Show the author email instead of the author name (Default: off). This
can also be controlled via the blame.showEmail config option.
-w
Ignore whitespace when comparing the parent's version and the child's
to find where the lines came from.
--diff-algorithm=(patience|minimal|histogram|myers)
Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
default, myers
The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
minimal
Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
produced.
patience
Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
histogram
This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
low-occurrence common elements".
For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
use --diff-algorithm=default option.
--abbrev=<n>
Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the abbreviated
object name, use at least <n> digits, but ensure the commit object
names are unique. If commits marked with caret (boundary), question
mark (ignored) or asterisk (unblamable) are shown, extend unmarked
object names to align them.
THE DEFAULT FORMAT
When neither --porcelain nor --incremental option is specified, git blame
will output annotation for each line with:
o abbreviated object name for the commit the line came from;
o author ident (by default the author name and date, unless -s or -e is
specified); and
o line number
before the line contents.
THE PORCELAIN FORMAT
In this format, each line is output after a header; the header at the
minimum has the first line which has:
o 40-byte SHA-1 of the commit the line is attributed to;
o the line number of the line in the original file;
o the line number of the line in the final file;
o on a line that starts a group of lines from a different commit than
the previous one, the number of lines in this group. On subsequent
lines this field is absent.
This header line is followed by the following information at least once
for each commit:
o the author name (author), email (author-mail), time (author-time),
and time zone (author-tz); similarly for committer.
o the filename in the commit that the line is attributed to.
o the first line of the commit log message (summary).
The contents of the actual line are output after the above header,
prefixed by a TAB. This is to allow adding more header elements later.
The porcelain format generally suppresses commit information that has
already been seen. For example, two lines that are blamed to the same
commit will both be shown, but the details for that commit will be shown
only once. Information which is specific to individual lines will not be
grouped together, like revs to be marked ignored or unblamable. This is
more efficient, but may require more state be kept by the reader. The
--line-porcelain option can be used to output full commit information for
each line, allowing simpler (but less efficient) usage like:
# count the number of lines attributed to each author
git blame --line-porcelain file |
sed -n 's/^author //p' |
sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
SPECIFYING RANGES
Unlike git blame and git annotate in older versions of git, the extent of
the annotation can be limited to both line ranges and revision ranges.
The -L option, which limits annotation to a range of lines, may be
specified multiple times.
When you are interested in finding the origin for lines 40-60 for file
foo, you can use the -L option like so (they mean the same thing -- both
ask for 21 lines starting at line 40):
git blame -L 40,60 foo
git blame -L 40,+21 foo
Also you can use a regular expression to specify the line range:
git blame -L '/^sub hello {/,/^}$/' foo
which limits the annotation to the body of the hello subroutine.
When you are not interested in changes older than version v2.6.18, or
changes older than 3 weeks, you can use revision range specifiers similar
to git rev-list:
git blame v2.6.18.. -- foo
git blame --since=3.weeks -- foo
When revision range specifiers are used to limit the annotation, lines
that have not changed since the range boundary (either the commit v2.6.18
or the most recent commit that is more than 3 weeks old in the above
example) are blamed for that range boundary commit.
A particularly useful way is to see if an added file has lines created by
copy-and-paste from existing files. Sometimes this indicates that the
developer was being sloppy and did not refactor the code properly. You
can first find the commit that introduced the file with:
git log --diff-filter=A --pretty=short -- foo
and then annotate the change between the commit and its parents, using
commit^! notation:
git blame -C -C -f $commit^! -- foo
INCREMENTAL OUTPUT
When called with --incremental option, the command outputs the result as
it is built. The output generally will talk about lines touched by more
recent commits first (i.e. the lines will be annotated out of order) and
is meant to be used by interactive viewers.
The output format is similar to the Porcelain format, but it does not
contain the actual lines from the file that is being annotated.
1. Each blame entry always starts with a line of:
<40-byte-hex-sha1> <sourceline> <resultline> <num-lines>
Line numbers count from 1.
2. The first time that a commit shows up in the stream, it has various
other information about it printed out with a one-word tag at the
beginning of each line describing the extra commit information
(author, email, committer, dates, summary, etc.).
3. Unlike the Porcelain format, the filename information is always given
and terminates the entry:
filename <whitespace-quoted-filename-goes-here>
and thus it is really quite easy to parse for some line- and
word-oriented parser (which should be quite natural for most
scripting languages).
Note
For people who do parsing: to make it more robust, just ignore
any lines between the first and last one (<40-byte-hex-sha1> and
filename lines) where you do not recognize the tag words (or care
about that particular one) at the beginning of the "extended
information" lines. That way, if there is ever added information
(like the commit encoding or extended commit commentary), a blame
viewer will not care.
MAPPING AUTHORS
See gitmailmap(5).
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what's found
there:
blame.blankBoundary
Show blank commit object name for boundary commits in git-blame(1).
This option defaults to false.
blame.coloring
This determines the coloring scheme to be applied to blame output. It
can be repeatedLines, highlightRecent, or none which is the default.
blame.date
Specifies the format used to output dates in git-blame(1). If unset
the iso format is used. For supported values, see the discussion of
the --date option at git-log(1).
blame.showEmail
Show the author email instead of author name in git-blame(1). This
option defaults to false.
blame.showRoot
Do not treat root commits as boundaries in git-blame(1). This option
defaults to false.
blame.ignoreRevsFile
Ignore revisions listed in the file, one unabbreviated object name
per line, in git-blame(1). Whitespace and comments beginning with #
are ignored. This option may be repeated multiple times. Empty file
names will reset the list of ignored revisions. This option will be
handled before the command line option --ignore-revs-file.
blame.markUnblamableLines
Mark lines that were changed by an ignored revision that we could not
attribute to another commit with a * in the output of git-blame(1).
blame.markIgnoredLines
Mark lines that were changed by an ignored revision that we
attributed to another commit with a ? in the output of git-blame(1).
SEE ALSO
git-annotate(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.56.0 2026-09-27 git-blame(1)
git 2.56.0 - Generated Thu Oct 1 11:04:21 CDT 2026