git-rev-list(1) Git Manual git-rev-list(1)
NAME
git-rev-list - Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order
SYNOPSIS
git rev-list [<options>] <commit>... [--] [<path>...]
DESCRIPTION
List commits that are reachable by following the parent links from the
given commit(s), but exclude commits that are reachable from the one(s)
given with a ^ in front of them. The output is given in reverse
chronological order by default.
You can think of this as a set operation. Commits reachable from any of
the commits given on the command line form a set, and then commits
reachable from any of the ones given with ^ in front are subtracted from
that set. The remaining commits are what comes out in the command's
output. Various other options and paths parameters can be used to further
limit the result.
Thus, the following command:
$ git rev-list foo bar ^baz
means "list all the commits which are reachable from foo or bar, but not
from baz".
A special notation "<commit1>..<commit2>" can be used as a short-hand for
"^<commit1> <commit2>". For example, either of the following may be used
interchangeably:
$ git rev-list origin..HEAD
$ git rev-list HEAD ^origin
Another special notation is "<commit1>...<commit2>" which is useful for
merges. The resulting set of commits is the symmetric difference between
the two operands. The following two commands are equivalent:
$ git rev-list A B --not $(git merge-base --all A B)
$ git rev-list A...B
rev-list is an essential Git command, since it provides the ability to
build and traverse commit ancestry graphs. For this reason, it has a lot
of different options that enable it to be used by commands as different
as git bisect and git repack.
OPTIONS
Commit Limiting
Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the
special notations explained in the description, additional commit
limiting may be applied.
Using more options generally further limits the output (e.g.
--since=<date1> limits to commits newer than <date1>, and using it with
--grep=<pattern> further limits to commits whose log message has a line
that matches <pattern>), unless otherwise noted.
Note that these are applied before commit ordering and formatting
options, such as --reverse.
-<number>, -n <number>, --max-count=<number>
Limit the output to the first <number> commits that would be shown.
--max-count-oldest=<number>
Limit the output to the last <number> commits that would be shown.
--skip=<number>
Skip <number> commits before starting to show the commit output.
--since=<date>, --after=<date>
Show commits more recent than <date>. As a special case, today means
the last midnight.
--since-as-filter=<date>
Show all commits more recent than <date>. This visits all commits in
the range, rather than stopping at the first commit which is older
than <date>.
--until=<date>, --before=<date>
Show commits older than <date>.
--max-age=<timestamp>, --min-age=<timestamp>
Limit the commits output to specified time range.
--author=<pattern>, --committer=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header lines
that match the <pattern> regular expression. With more than one
--author=<pattern>, commits whose author matches any of the <pattern>
are chosen (similarly for multiple --committer=<pattern>).
--grep-reflog=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with reflog entries that match the
<pattern> regular expression. With more than one --grep-reflog,
commits whose reflog message matches any of the given patterns are
chosen. It is an error to use this option unless --walk-reflogs is in
use.
--grep=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with a log message that matches the
<pattern> regular expression. With more than one --grep=<pattern>,
commits whose message matches any of the <pattern> are chosen (but
see --all-match).
--all-match
Limit the commits output to ones that match all given --grep, instead
of ones that match at least one.
--invert-grep
Limit the commits output to ones with a log message that do not match
the <pattern> specified with --grep=<pattern>.
-i, --regexp-ignore-case
Match the regular expression limiting patterns without regard to
letter case.
--basic-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be basic regular expressions; this
is the default.
-E, --extended-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions
instead of the default basic regular expressions.
-F, --fixed-strings
Consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don't interpret
pattern as a regular expression).
-P, --perl-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be Perl-compatible regular
expressions.
Support for these types of regular expressions is an optional
compile-time dependency. If Git wasn't compiled with support for them
providing this option will cause it to die.
--remove-empty
Stop when a given path disappears from the tree.
--merges
Print only merge commits. This is exactly the same as
--min-parents=2.
--no-merges
Do not print commits with more than one parent. This is exactly the
same as --max-parents=1.
--min-parents=<number>, --max-parents=<number>, --no-min-parents,
--no-max-parents
Show only commits which have at least (or at most) that many parent
commits. In particular, --max-parents=1 is the same as --no-merges,
--min-parents=2 is the same as --merges. --max-parents=0 gives all
root commits and --min-parents=3 all octopus merges.
--no-min-parents and --no-max-parents reset these limits (to no
limit) again. Equivalent forms are --min-parents=0 (any commit has 0
or more parents) and --max-parents=-1 (negative numbers denote no
upper limit).
--first-parent
When finding commits to include, follow only the first parent commit
upon seeing a merge commit. This option can give a better overview
when viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch, because
merges into a topic branch tend to be only about adjusting to updated
upstream from time to time, and this option allows you to ignore the
individual commits brought in to your history by such a merge.
--exclude-first-parent-only
When finding commits to exclude (with a ^), follow only the first
parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. This can be used to find
the set of changes in a topic branch from the point where it diverged
from the remote branch, given that arbitrary merges can be valid
topic branch changes.
--maximal-only
Restrict the output commits to be those that are not reachable from
any other commits in the revision range.
--not
Reverses the meaning of the ^ prefix (or lack thereof) for all
following revision specifiers, up to the next --not. When used on the
command line before --stdin, the revisions passed through stdin will
not be affected by it. Conversely, when passed via standard input,
the revisions passed on the command line will not be affected by it.
--all
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/, along with HEAD, are listed on
the command line as <commit>.
--branches[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/heads are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit branches to ones
matching given shell glob. If <pattern> lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the
end is implied.
--tags[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/tags are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit tags to ones matching
given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the end is
implied.
--remotes[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/remotes are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit remote-tracking
branches to ones matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?, *, or
[, /* at the end is implied.
--glob=<glob-pattern>
Pretend as if all the refs matching shell glob <glob-pattern> are
listed on the command line as <commit>. Leading refs/, is
automatically prepended if missing. If pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /*
at the end is implied.
--exclude=<glob-pattern>
Do not include refs matching <glob-pattern> that the next --all,
--branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob would otherwise consider.
Repetitions of this option accumulate exclusion patterns up to the
next --all, --branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob option (other
options or arguments do not clear accumulated patterns).
The patterns given should not begin with refs/heads, refs/tags, or
refs/remotes when applied to --branches, --tags, or --remotes,
respectively, and they must begin with refs/ when applied to --glob
or --all. If a trailing /* is intended, it must be given explicitly.
--exclude-hidden=(fetch|receive|uploadpack)
Do not include refs that would be hidden by git-fetch,
git-receive-pack or git-upload-pack by consulting the appropriate
fetch.hideRefs, receive.hideRefs or uploadpack.hideRefs configuration
along with transfer.hideRefs (see git-config(1)). This option affects
the next pseudo-ref option --all or --glob and is cleared after
processing them.
--reflog
Pretend as if all objects mentioned by reflogs are listed on the
command line as <commit>.
--alternate-refs
Pretend as if all objects mentioned as ref tips of alternate
repositories were listed on the command line. An alternate repository
is any repository whose object directory is specified in
objects/info/alternates. The set of included objects may be modified
by core.alternateRefsCommand, etc. See git-config(1).
--single-worktree
By default, all working trees will be examined by the following
options when there are more than one (see git-worktree(1)): --all,
--reflog and --indexed-objects. This option forces them to examine
the current working tree only.
--ignore-missing
Upon seeing an invalid object name in the input, pretend as if the
bad input was not given.
--stdin
In addition to getting arguments from the command line, read them
from standard input as well. This accepts commits and pseudo-options
like --all and --glob=. When a -- separator is seen, the following
input is treated as paths and used to limit the result. Flags like
--not which are read via standard input are only respected for
arguments passed in the same way and will not influence any
subsequent command line arguments.
--quiet
Don't print anything to standard output. This form is primarily meant
to allow the caller to test the exit status to see if a range of
objects is fully connected (or not). It is faster than redirecting
stdout to /dev/null as the output does not have to be formatted.
--disk-usage, --disk-usage=human
Suppress normal output; instead, print the sum of the bytes used for
on-disk storage by the selected commits or objects. This is
equivalent to piping the output into git cat-file
--batch-check='%(objectsize:disk)', except that it runs much faster
(especially with --use-bitmap-index). See the CAVEATS section in git-
cat-file(1) for the limitations of what "on-disk storage" means. With
the optional value human, on-disk storage size is shown in
human-readable string(e.g. 12.24 Kib, 3.50 Mib).
--cherry-mark
Like --cherry-pick (see below) but mark equivalent commits with =
rather than omitting them, and inequivalent ones with +.
--cherry-pick
Omit any commit that introduces the same change as another commit on
the "other side" when the set of commits are limited with symmetric
difference.
For example, if you have two branches, A and B, a usual way to list
all commits on only one side of them is with --left-right (see the
example below in the description of the --left-right option).
However, it shows the commits that were cherry-picked from the other
branch (for example, "3rd on b" may be cherry-picked from branch A).
With this option, such pairs of commits are excluded from the output.
--left-only, --right-only
List only commits on the respective side of a symmetric difference,
i.e. only those which would be marked < resp. > by --left-right.
For example, --cherry-pick --right-only A...B omits those commits
from B which are in A or are patch-equivalent to a commit in A. In
other words, this lists the + commits from git cherry A B. More
precisely, --cherry-pick --right-only --no-merges gives the exact
list.
--cherry
A synonym for --right-only --cherry-mark --no-merges; useful to limit
the output to the commits on our side and mark those that have been
applied to the other side of a forked history with git log --cherry
upstream...mybranch, similar to git cherry upstream mybranch.
-g, --walk-reflogs
Instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk reflog entries
from the most recent one to older ones. When this option is used you
cannot specify commits to exclude (that is, ^<commit>,
<commit1>..<commit2>, and <commit1>...<commit2> notations cannot be
used).
With --pretty format other than oneline and reference (for obvious
reasons), this causes the output to have two extra lines of
information taken from the reflog. The reflog designator in the
output may be shown as ref@{<Nth>} (where <Nth> is the
reverse-chronological index in the reflog) or as ref@{<timestamp>}
(with the <timestamp> for that entry), depending on a few rules:
1. If the starting point is specified as ref@{<Nth>}, show the index
format.
2. If the starting point was specified as ref@{now}, show the
timestamp format.
3. If neither was used, but --date was given on the command line,
show the timestamp in the format requested by --date.
4. Otherwise, show the index format.
Under --pretty=oneline, the commit message is prefixed with this
information on the same line. This option cannot be combined with
--reverse. See also git-reflog(1).
Under --pretty=reference, this information will not be shown at all.
--merge
Show commits touching conflicted paths in the range HEAD...<other>,
where <other> is the first existing pseudoref in MERGE_HEAD,
CHERRY_PICK_HEAD, REVERT_HEAD or REBASE_HEAD. Only works when the
index has unmerged entries. This option can be used to show relevant
commits when resolving conflicts from a 3-way merge.
--boundary
Output excluded boundary commits. Boundary commits are prefixed with
-.
--use-bitmap-index
Try to speed up the traversal using the pack bitmap index (if one is
available). Note that when traversing with --objects, trees and blobs
will not have their associated path printed.
--progress=<header>
Show progress reports on stderr as objects are considered. The
<header> text will be printed with each progress update.
-z
Instead of being newline-delimited, each outputted object and its
accompanying metadata is delimited using NUL bytes. Output is printed
in the following form:
<OID> NUL [<token>=<value> NUL]...
Additional object metadata, such as object paths or boundary objects,
is printed using the <token>=<value> form. Token values are printed
as-is without any encoding/truncation. An OID entry never contains a
= character and thus is used to signal the start of a new object
record. Examples:
<OID> NUL
<OID> NUL path=<path> NUL
<OID> NUL boundary=yes NUL
<OID> NUL missing=yes NUL [<token>=<value> NUL]...
This mode is only compatible with the --objects, --boundary, and
--missing output options.
History Simplification
Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example
the commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of
History Simplification, one part is selecting the commits and the other
is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the history.
The following options select the commits to be shown:
<paths>
Commits modifying the given <paths> are selected.
--simplify-by-decoration
Commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected.
Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history.
The following options affect the way the simplification is performed:
Default mode
Simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the final
state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side branches if
the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches with the same
content)
--show-pulls
Include all commits from the default mode, but also any merge commits
that are not TREESAME to the first parent but are TREESAME to a later
parent. This mode is helpful for showing the merge commits that
"first introduced" a change to a branch.
--full-history
Same as the default mode, but does not prune some history.
--dense
Only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a meaningful
history.
--sparse
All commits in the simplified history are shown.
--simplify-merges
Additional option to --full-history to remove some needless merges
from the resulting history, as there are no selected commits
contributing to this merge.
--ancestry-path[=<commit>]
When given a range of commits to display (e.g. <commit1>..<commit2>
or <commit2> ^<commit1>), and a commit <commit> in that range, only
display commits in that range that are ancestors of <commit>,
descendants of <commit>, or <commit> itself. If no commit is
specified, use <commit1> (the excluded part of the range) as
<commit>. Can be passed multiple times; if so, a commit is included
if it is any of the commits given or if it is an ancestor or
descendant of one of them.
A more detailed explanation follows.
Suppose you specified foo as the <paths>. We shall call commits that
modify foo !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff filtered for foo,
they look different and equal, respectively.)
In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to
illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume
that you are filtering for a file foo in this commit graph:
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / / /
I B C D E Y
\ / / / / /
`-------------' X
The horizontal line of history A---Q is taken to be the first parent of
each merge. The commits are:
o I is the initial commit, in which foo exists with contents asdf, and
a file quux exists with contents quux. Initial commits are compared
to an empty tree, so I is !TREESAME.
o In A, foo contains just foo.
o B contains the same change as A. Its merge M is trivial and hence
TREESAME to all parents.
o C does not change foo, but its merge N changes it to foobar, so it is
not TREESAME to any parent.
o D sets foo to baz. Its merge O combines the strings from N and D to
foobarbaz; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent.
o E changes quux to xyzzy, and its merge P combines the strings to quux
xyzzy. P is TREESAME to O, but not to E.
o X is an independent root commit that added a new file side, and Y
modified it. Y is TREESAME to X. Its merge Q added side to P, and Q
is TREESAME to P, but not to Y.
rev-list walks backwards through history, including or excluding commits
based on whether --full-history and/or parent rewriting (via --parents or
--children) are used. The following settings are available.
Default mode
Commits are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent (though
this can be changed, see --sparse below). If the commit was a merge,
and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow only that parent. (Even if
there are several TREESAME parents, follow only one of them.)
Otherwise, follow all parents.
This results in:
.-A---N---O
/ / /
I---------D
Note how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is
available, removed B from consideration entirely. C was considered
via N, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an empty tree,
so I is !TREESAME.
Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that does
not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have shown the
parent lines.
--full-history without parent rewriting
This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow all
parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. Even if
more than one side of the merge has commits that are included, this
does not imply that the merge itself is! In the example, we get
I A B N D O P Q
M was excluded because it is TREESAME to both parents. E, C and B
were all walked, but only B was !TREESAME, so the others do not
appear.
Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to talk
about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so we show
them disconnected.
--full-history with parent rewriting
Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME (though this
can be changed, see --sparse below).
Merges are always included. However, their parent list is rewritten:
Along each parent, prune away commits that are not included
themselves. This results in
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / /
I B / D /
\ / / / /
`-------------'
Compare to --full-history without rewriting above. Note that E was
pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was
rewritten to contain E's parent I. The same happened for C and N, and
X, Y and Q.
In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME
affects inclusion:
--dense
Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME to any
parent.
--sparse
All commits that are walked are included.
Note that without --full-history, this still simplifies merges: if
one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the other
sides of the merge are never walked.
--simplify-merges
First, build a history graph in the same way that --full-history with
parent rewriting does (see above).
Then simplify each commit C to its replacement C' in the final
history according to the following rules:
o Set C' to C.
o Replace each parent P of C' with its simplification P'. In the
process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents or that
are root commits TREESAME to an empty tree, and remove
duplicates, but take care to never drop all parents that we are
TREESAME to.
o If after this parent rewriting, C' is a root or merge commit (has
zero or >1 parents), a boundary commit, or !TREESAME, it remains.
Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent.
The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to
--full-history with parent rewriting. The example turns into:
.-A---M---N---O
/ / /
I B D
\ / /
`---------'
Note the major differences in N, P, and Q over --full-history:
o N's parent list had I removed, because it is an ancestor of the
other parent M. Still, N remained because it is !TREESAME.
o P's parent list similarly had I removed. P was then removed
completely, because it had one parent and is TREESAME.
o Q's parent list had Y simplified to X. X was then removed,
because it was a TREESAME root. Q was then removed completely,
because it had one parent and is TREESAME.
There is another simplification mode available:
--ancestry-path[=<commit>]
Limit the displayed commits to those which are an ancestor of
<commit>, or which are a descendant of <commit>, or are <commit>
itself.
As an example use case, consider the following commit history:
D---E-------F
/ \ \
B---C---G---H---I---J
/ \
A-------K---------------L--M
A regular D..M computes the set of commits that are ancestors of M,
but excludes the ones that are ancestors of D. This is useful to see
what happened to the history leading to M since D, in the sense that
"what does M have that did not exist in D". The result in this
example would be all the commits, except A and B (and D itself, of
course).
When we want to find out what commits in M are contaminated with the
bug introduced by D and need fixing, however, we might want to view
only the subset of D..M that are actually descendants of D, i.e.
excluding C and K. This is exactly what the --ancestry-path option
does. Applied to the D..M range, it results in:
E-------F
\ \
G---H---I---J
\
L--M
We can also use --ancestry-path=D instead of --ancestry-path which
means the same thing when applied to the D..M range but is just more
explicit.
If we instead are interested in a given topic within this range, and
all commits affected by that topic, we may only want to view the
subset of D..M which contain that topic in their ancestry path. So,
using --ancestry-path=H D..M for example would result in:
E
\
C---G---H---I---J
\
L--M
Whereas --ancestry-path=K D..M would result in
K---------------L--M
Before discussing another option, --show-pulls, we need to create a new
example history.
A common problem users face when looking at simplified history is that a
commit they know changed a file somehow does not appear in the file's
simplified history. Let's demonstrate a new example and show how options
such as --full-history and --simplify-merges works in that case:
.-A---M-----C--N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`-Z' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `---Y--'
For this example, suppose I created file.txt which was modified by A, B,
and X in different ways. The single-parent commits C, Z, and Y do not
change file.txt. The merge commit M was created by resolving the merge
conflict to include both changes from A and B and hence is not TREESAME
to either. The merge commit R, however, was created by ignoring the
contents of file.txt at M and taking only the contents of file.txt at X.
Hence, R is TREESAME to X but not M. Finally, the natural merge
resolution to create N is to take the contents of file.txt at R, so N is
TREESAME to R but not C. The merge commits O and P are TREESAME to their
first parents, but not to their second parents, Z and Y respectively.
When using the default mode, N and R both have a TREESAME parent, so
those edges are walked and the others are ignored. The resulting history
graph is:
I---X
When using --full-history, Git walks every edge. This will discover the
commits A and B and the merge M, but also will reveal the merge commits O
and P. With parent rewriting, the resulting graph is:
.-A---M--------N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`--' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `------'
Here, the merge commits O and P contribute extra noise, as they did not
actually contribute a change to file.txt. They only merged a topic that
was based on an older version of file.txt. This is a common issue in
repositories using a workflow where many contributors work in parallel
and merge their topic branches along a single trunk: many unrelated
merges appear in the --full-history results.
When using the --simplify-merges option, the commits O and P disappear
from the results. This is because the rewritten second parents of O and P
are reachable from their first parents. Those edges are removed and then
the commits look like single-parent commits that are TREESAME to their
parent. This also happens to the commit N, resulting in a history view as
follows:
.-A---M--.
/ / \
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'
In this view, we see all of the important single-parent changes from A,
B, and X. We also see the carefully-resolved merge M and the
not-so-carefully-resolved merge R. This is usually enough information to
determine why the commits A and B "disappeared" from history in the
default view. However, there are a few issues with this approach.
The first issue is performance. Unlike any previous option, the
--simplify-merges option requires walking the entire commit history
before returning a single result. This can make the option difficult to
use for very large repositories.
The second issue is one of auditing. When many contributors are working
on the same repository, it is important which merge commits introduced a
change into an important branch. The problematic merge R above is not
likely to be the merge commit that was used to merge into an important
branch. Instead, the merge N was used to merge R and X into the important
branch. This commit may have information about why the change X came to
override the changes from A and B in its commit message.
--show-pulls
In addition to the commits shown in the default history, show each
merge commit that is not TREESAME to its first parent but is TREESAME
to a later parent.
When a merge commit is included by --show-pulls, the merge is treated
as if it "pulled" the change from another branch. When using
--show-pulls on this example (and no other options) the resulting
graph is:
I---X---R---N
Here, the merge commits R and N are included because they pulled the
commits X and R into the base branch, respectively. These merges are
the reason the commits A and B do not appear in the default history.
When --show-pulls is paired with --simplify-merges, the graph
includes all of the necessary information:
.-A---M--. N
/ / \ /
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'
Notice that since M is reachable from R, the edge from N to M was
simplified away. However, N still appears in the history as an
important commit because it "pulled" the change R into the main
branch.
The --simplify-by-decoration option allows you to view only the big
picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits that are not
referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME (in other words, kept
after history simplification rules described above) if (1) they are
referenced by tags, or (2) they change the contents of the paths given on
the command line. All other commits are marked as TREESAME (subject to be
simplified away).
Bisection Helpers
--bisect
Limit output to the one commit object which is roughly halfway
between included and excluded commits. Note that the bad bisection
ref refs/bisect/bad is added to the included commits (if it exists)
and the good bisection refs refs/bisect/good-* are added to the
excluded commits (if they exist). Thus, supposing there are no refs
in refs/bisect/, if
$ git rev-list --bisect foo ^bar ^baz
outputs midpoint, the output of the two commands
$ git rev-list foo ^midpoint
$ git rev-list midpoint ^bar ^baz
would be of roughly the same length. Finding the change which
introduces a regression is thus reduced to a binary search:
repeatedly generate and test new 'midpoint's until the commit chain
is of length one.
--bisect-vars
This calculates the same as --bisect, except that refs in
refs/bisect/ are not used, and except that this outputs text ready to
be eval'ed by the shell. These lines will assign the name of the
midpoint revision to the variable bisect_rev, and the expected number
of commits to be tested after bisect_rev is tested to bisect_nr, the
expected number of commits to be tested if bisect_rev turns out to be
good to bisect_good, the expected number of commits to be tested if
bisect_rev turns out to be bad to bisect_bad, and the number of
commits we are bisecting right now to bisect_all.
--bisect-all
This outputs all the commit objects between the included and excluded
commits, ordered by their distance to the included and excluded
commits. Refs in refs/bisect/ are not used. The farthest from them is
displayed first. (This is the only one displayed by --bisect.)
This is useful because it makes it easy to choose a good commit to
test when you want to avoid to test some of them for some reason
(they may not compile for example).
This option can be used along with --bisect-vars, in this case, after
all the sorted commit objects, there will be the same text as if
--bisect-vars had been used alone.
Commit Ordering
By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order.
--date-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise
show commits in the commit timestamp order.
--author-date-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise
show commits in the author timestamp order.
--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:
---1----2----4----7
\ \
3----5----6----8---
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
Output the commits chosen to be shown (see Commit Limiting section
above) in reverse order. Cannot be combined with --walk-reflogs.
Object Traversal
These options are mostly targeted for packing of Git repositories.
--objects
Print the object IDs of any object referenced by the listed commits.
--objects foo ^bar thus means "send me all object IDs which I need to
download if I have the commit object bar but not foo". See also
--object-names below.
--in-commit-order
Print tree and blob ids in order of the commits. The tree and blob
ids are printed after they are first referenced by a commit.
--objects-edge
Similar to --objects, but also print the IDs of excluded commits
prefixed with a "-" character. This is used by git-pack-objects(1) to
build a "thin" pack, which records objects in deltified form based on
objects contained in these excluded commits to reduce network
traffic.
--objects-edge-aggressive
Similar to --objects-edge, but it tries harder to find excluded
commits at the cost of increased time. This is used instead of
--objects-edge to build "thin" packs for shallow repositories.
--indexed-objects
Pretend as if all trees and blobs used by the index are listed on the
command line. Note that you probably want to use --objects, too.
--unpacked
Only useful with --objects; print the object IDs that are not in
packs.
--object-names
Only useful with --objects; print the names of the object IDs that
are found. This is the default behavior. Note that the "name" of each
object is ambiguous, and mostly intended as a hint for packing
objects. In particular: no distinction is made between the names of
tags, trees, and blobs; path names may be modified to remove
newlines; and if an object would appear multiple times with different
names, only one name is shown.
--no-object-names
Only useful with --objects; does not print the names of the object
IDs that are found. This inverts --object-names. This flag allows the
output to be more easily parsed by commands such as git-cat-file(1).
--filter=<filter-spec>
Only useful with one of the --objects*; omits objects (usually blobs)
from the list of printed objects. The <filter-spec> may be one of the
following:
The form --filter=blob:none omits all blobs.
The form --filter=blob:limit=<n>[kmg] omits blobs of size at least
<n> bytes or units. <n> may be zero. The suffixes k, m, and g can be
used to name units in KiB, MiB, or GiB. For example, blob:limit=1k is
the same as blob:limit=1024.
The form --filter=object:type=(tag|commit|tree|blob) omits all
objects which are not of the requested type. Note that explicitly
provided objects ignore filters and are always printed unless
--filter-provided-objects is also specified.
The form --filter=sparse:oid=<blob-ish> uses a sparse-checkout
specification contained in the blob (or blob-expression) <blob-ish>
to omit blobs that would not be required for a sparse checkout on the
requested refs.
The form --filter=tree:<depth> omits all blobs and trees whose depth
from the root tree is >= <depth> (minimum depth if an object is
located at multiple depths in the commits traversed). <depth>=0 will
not include any trees or blobs unless included explicitly in the
command-line (or standard input when --stdin is used). <depth>=1
will include only the tree and blobs which are referenced directly by
a commit reachable from <commit> or an explicitly-given object.
<depth>=2 is like <depth>=1 while also including trees and blobs one
more level removed from an explicitly-given commit or tree.
Note that the form --filter=sparse:path=<path> that wants to read
from an arbitrary path on the filesystem has been dropped for
security reasons.
Multiple --filter= flags can be specified to combine filters. Only
objects which are accepted by every filter are included.
The form --filter=combine:<filter1>+<filter2>+...<filterN> can also
be used to combined several filters, but this is harder than just
repeating the --filter flag and is usually not necessary. Filters are
joined by + and individual filters are %-encoded (i.e. URL-encoded).
Besides the + and % characters, the following characters are reserved
and also must be encoded: ~!@#$^&*()[]{}\;",<>?'` as well as all
characters with ASCII code <= 0x20, which includes space and newline.
Other arbitrary characters can also be encoded. For instance,
combine:tree:3+blob:none and combine:tree%3A3+blob%3Anone are
equivalent.
--no-filter
Turn off any previous --filter= argument.
--filter-provided-objects
Filter the list of explicitly provided objects, which would otherwise
always be printed even if they did not match any of the filters. Only
useful with --filter=.
--filter-print-omitted
Only useful with --filter=; prints a list of the objects omitted by
the filter. Object IDs are prefixed with a "~" character.
--missing=<missing-action>
A debug option to help with future "partial clone" development. This
option specifies how missing objects are handled.
The form --missing=error requests that rev-list stop with an error if
a missing object is encountered. This is the default action.
The form --missing=allow-any will allow object traversal to continue
if a missing object is encountered. Missing objects will silently be
omitted from the results.
The form --missing=allow-promisor is like allow-any, but will only
allow object traversal to continue for EXPECTED promisor missing
objects. Unexpected missing objects will raise an error.
The form --missing=print is like allow-any, but will also print a
list of the missing objects. Object IDs are prefixed with a "?"
character.
The form --missing=print-info is like print, but will also print
additional information about the missing object inferred from its
containing object. The information is all printed on the same line
with the missing object ID in the form: ?<oid> [<token>=<value>]....
The <token>=<value> pairs containing additional information are
separated from each other by a SP. The value is encoded in a token
specific fashion, but SP or LF contained in value are always expected
to be represented in such a way that the resulting encoded value does
not have either of these two problematic bytes. Each <token>=<value>
may be one of the following:
o The path=<path> shows the path of the missing object inferred
from a containing object. A path containing SP or special
characters is enclosed in double-quotes in the C style as needed.
o The type=<type> shows the type of the missing object inferred
from a containing object.
If some tips passed to the traversal are missing, they will be
considered as missing too, and the traversal will ignore them. In
case we cannot get their Object ID though, an error will be raised.
--missing-only
When used together with --missing=print or --missing=print-info,
suppress all output for present objects and print only the missing
ones. The selected --missing= format is preserved (so
--missing=print-info still emits path= / type= fields), but the
leading "?" prefix used by the non--z forms is omitted. This is
useful for scripting, as a simpler and faster alternative to
post-processing the output of --missing=print.
This option is incompatible with --count and --disk-usage. It is an
error to use --missing-only without --missing=print or
--missing=print-info.
--exclude-promisor-objects
(For internal use only.) Prefilter object traversal at promisor
boundary. This is used with partial clone. This is stronger than
--missing=allow-promisor because it limits the traversal, rather than
just silencing errors about missing objects.
--no-walk[=(sorted|unsorted)]
Only show the given commits, but do not traverse their ancestors.
This has no effect if a range is specified. If the argument unsorted
is given, the commits are shown in the order they were given on the
command line. Otherwise (if sorted or no argument was given), the
commits are shown in reverse chronological order by commit time.
Cannot be combined with --graph.
--do-walk
Overrides a previous --no-walk.
Commit Formatting
Using these options, git-rev-list(1) will act similar to the more
specialized family of commit log tools: git-log(1), git-show(1), and git-
whatchanged(1).
--pretty[=<format>], --format=<format>
Pretty-print the contents of the commit logs in a given format, where
<format> can be one of oneline, short, medium, full, fuller,
reference, email, raw, format:<string> and tformat:<string>. When
<format> is none of the above, and has %<placeholder> in it, it acts
as if --pretty=tformat:<format> were given.
See the "PRETTY FORMATS" section for some additional details for each
format. When =<format> part is omitted, it defaults to medium.
Note
you can specify the default pretty format in the repository
configuration (see git-config(1)).
--abbrev-commit
Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal commit object name,
show a prefix that names the object uniquely. --abbrev=<n> (which
also modifies diff output, if it is displayed) option can be used to
specify the minimum length of the prefix.
This should make --pretty=oneline a whole lot more readable for
people using 80-column terminals.
--no-abbrev-commit
Show the full 40-byte hexadecimal commit object name. This negates
--abbrev-commit, either explicit or implied by other options such as
--oneline. It also overrides the log.abbrevCommit variable.
--oneline
This is a shorthand for --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit used
together.
--encoding=<encoding>
Commit objects record the character encoding used for the log message
in their encoding header; this option can be used to tell the command
to re-code the commit log message in the encoding preferred by the
user. For non plumbing commands this defaults to UTF-8. Note that if
an object claims to be encoded in X and we are outputting in X, we
will output the object verbatim; this means that invalid sequences in
the original commit may be copied to the output. Likewise, if
iconv(3) fails to convert the commit, we will quietly output the
original object verbatim.
--expand-tabs=<n>, --expand-tabs, --no-expand-tabs
Perform a tab expansion (replace each tab with enough spaces to fill
to the next display column that is a multiple of <n>) in the log
message before showing it in the output. --expand-tabs is a
short-hand for --expand-tabs=8, and --no-expand-tabs is a short-hand
for --expand-tabs=0, which disables tab expansion.
By default, tabs are expanded in pretty formats that indent the log
message by 4 spaces (i.e. medium, which is the default, full, and
fuller).
--show-signature
Check the validity of a signed commit object by passing the signature
to gpg --verify and show the output.
--relative-date
Synonym for --date=relative.
--date=<format>
Only takes effect for dates shown in human-readable format, such as
when using --pretty. log.date config variable sets a default value
for the log command's --date option. By default, dates are shown in
the original time zone (either committer's or author's). If -local is
appended to the format (e.g., iso-local), the user's local time zone
is used instead.
--date=relative shows dates relative to the current time, e.g. "2
hours ago". The -local option has no effect for --date=relative.
--date=local is an alias for --date=default-local.
--date=iso (or --date=iso8601) shows timestamps in a ISO 8601-like
format. The differences to the strict ISO 8601 format are:
o a space instead of the T date/time delimiter
o a space between time and time zone
o no colon between hours and minutes of the time zone
--date=iso-strict (or --date=iso8601-strict) shows timestamps in
strict ISO 8601 format.
--date=rfc (or --date=rfc2822) shows timestamps in RFC 2822 format,
often found in email messages.
--date=short shows only the date, but not the time, in YYYY-MM-DD
format.
--date=raw shows the date as seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01
00:00:00 UTC), followed by a space, and then the timezone as an
offset from UTC (a + or - with four digits; the first two are hours,
and the second two are minutes). I.e., as if the timestamp were
formatted with strftime("%s %z")). Note that the -local option does
not affect the seconds-since-epoch value (which is always measured in
UTC), but does switch the accompanying timezone value.
--date=human shows the timezone if the timezone does not match the
current time-zone, and doesn't print the whole date if that matches
(ie skip printing year for dates that are "this year", but also skip
the whole date itself if it's in the last few days and we can just
say what weekday it was). For older dates the hour and minute is also
omitted.
--date=unix shows the date as a Unix epoch timestamp (seconds since
1970). As with --raw, this is always in UTC and therefore -local has
no effect.
--date=format:<format> feeds the <format> to your system strftime,
except for %s, %z, and %Z, which are handled internally. Use
--date=format:%c to show the date in your system locale's preferred
format. See the strftime(3) manual for a complete list of format
placeholders. When using -local, the correct syntax is
--date=format-local:<format>.
--date=default is the default format, and is based on ctime(3)
output. It shows a single line with three-letter day of the week,
three-letter month, day-of-month, hour-minute-seconds in "HH:MM:SS"
format, followed by 4-digit year, plus timezone information, unless
the local time zone is used, e.g. Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 +0000.
--header
Print the contents of the commit in raw-format; each record is
separated with a NUL character.
--no-commit-header
Suppress the header line containing "commit" and the object ID
printed before the specified format. This has no effect on the
built-in formats; only custom formats are affected.
--commit-header
Overrides a previous --no-commit-header.
--parents
Print also the parents of the commit (in the form "commit parent...
"). Also enables parent rewriting, see History Simplification above.
--children
Print also the children of the commit (in the form "commit child...
"). Also enables parent rewriting, see History Simplification above.
--timestamp
Print the raw commit timestamp.
--left-right
Mark which side of a symmetric difference a commit is reachable from.
Commits from the left side are prefixed with < and those from the
right with >. If combined with --boundary, those commits are prefixed
with -.
For example, if you have this topology:
y---b---b branch B
/ \ /
/ .
/ / \
o---x---a---a branch A
you would get an output like this:
$ git rev-list --left-right --boundary --pretty=oneline A...B
>bbbbbbb... 3rd on b
>bbbbbbb... 2nd on b
<aaaaaaa... 3rd on a
<aaaaaaa... 2nd on a
-yyyyyyy... 1st on b
-xxxxxxx... 1st on a
--graph
Draw a text-based graphical representation of the commit history on
the left hand side of the output. This may cause extra lines to be
printed in between commits, in order for the graph history to be
drawn properly. Cannot be combined with --no-walk.
This enables parent rewriting, see History Simplification above.
This implies the --topo-order option by default, but the --date-order
option may also be specified.
--show-linear-break[=<barrier>]
When --graph is not used, all history branches are flattened which
can make it hard to see that the two consecutive commits do not
belong to a linear branch. This option puts a barrier in between them
in that case. If <barrier> is specified, it is the string that will
be shown instead of the default one.
--graph-lane-limit=<n>
When --graph is used, limit the number of graph lanes to be shown.
Lanes over the limit are replaced with a truncation mark ~. By
default it is set to 0 (no limit), zero and negative values are
ignored and treated as no limit.
--no-graph-indent, --graph-indent
When used with --graph, indent visual roots (commits with no parents
or whose parents are not shown) to differentiate them from commits
that are vertically adjacent but unrelated. Enabled by default. Use
--no-graph-indent to disable or set log.graphIndent to set a default
preference.
--count
Print a number stating how many commits would have been listed, and
suppress all other output. When used together with --left-right,
instead print the counts for left and right commits, separated by a
tab. When used together with --cherry-mark, omit patch equivalent
commits from these counts and print the count for equivalent commits
separated by a tab.
PRETTY FORMATS
If the commit is a merge, and if the pretty-format is not oneline, email
or raw, an additional line is inserted before the Author: line. This line
begins with "Merge: " and the hashes of ancestral commits are printed,
separated by spaces. Note that the listed commits may not necessarily be
the list of the direct parent commits if you have limited your view of
history: for example, if you are only interested in changes related to a
certain directory or file.
There are several built-in formats, and you can define additional formats
by setting a pretty.<name> config option to either another format name,
or a format: string, as described below (see git-config(1)). Here are the
details of the built-in formats:
oneline
<hash> <title-line>
This is designed to be as compact as possible.
short
commit <hash>
Author: <author>
<title-line>
medium
commit <hash>
Author: <author>
Date: <author-date>
<title-line>
<full-commit-message>
full
commit <hash>
Author: <author>
Commit: <committer>
<title-line>
<full-commit-message>
fuller
commit <hash>
Author: <author>
AuthorDate: <author-date>
Commit: <committer>
CommitDate: <committer-date>
<title-line>
<full-commit-message>
reference
<abbrev-hash> (<title-line>, <short-author-date>)
This format is used to refer to another commit in a commit message
and is the same as --pretty='format:%C(auto)%h (%s, %ad)'. By
default, the date is formatted with --date=short unless another
--date option is explicitly specified. As with any format: with
format placeholders, its output is not affected by other options like
--decorate and --walk-reflogs.
email
From <hash> <date>
From: <author>
Date: <author-date>
Subject: [PATCH] <title-line>
<full-commit-message>
mboxrd
Like email, but lines in the commit message starting with "From "
(preceded by zero or more ">") are quoted with ">" so they aren't
confused as starting a new commit.
raw
The raw format shows the entire commit exactly as stored in the
commit object. Notably, the hashes are displayed in full, regardless
of whether --abbrev or --no-abbrev are used, and parents information
show the true parent commits, without taking grafts or history
simplification into account. Note that this format affects the way
commits are displayed, but not the way the diff is shown e.g. with
git log --raw. To get full object names in a raw diff format, use
--no-abbrev.
format:<format-string>
The format:<format-string> format allows you to specify which
information you want to show. It works a little bit like printf
format, with the notable exception that you get a newline with %n
instead of \n.
E.g, format:"The author of %h was %an, %ar%nThe title was >>%s<<%n"
would show something like this:
The author of fe6e0ee was Junio C Hamano, 23 hours ago
The title was >>t4119: test autocomputing -p<n> for traditional diff input.<<
The placeholders are:
o Placeholders that expand to a single literal character:
%n
newline
%%
a raw %
%x00
%x followed by two hexadecimal digits is replaced with a byte
with the hexadecimal digits' value (we will call this
"literal formatting code" in the rest of this document).
o Placeholders that affect formatting of later placeholders:
%Cred
switch color to red
%Cgreen
switch color to green
%Cblue
switch color to blue
%Creset
reset color
%C(<spec>)
color specification, as described under Values in the
"CONFIGURATION FILE" section of git-config(1). By default,
colors are shown only when enabled for log output (by
color.diff, color.ui, or --color, and respecting the auto
settings of the former if we are going to a terminal).
%C(auto,<spec>) is accepted as a historical synonym for the
default (e.g., %C(auto,red)). Specifying %C(always,<spec>)
will show the colors even when color is not otherwise enabled
(though consider just using --color=always to enable color
for the whole output, including this format and anything else
git might color). auto alone (i.e. %C(auto)) will turn on
auto coloring on the next placeholders until the color is
switched again.
%m
left (<), right (>) or boundary (-) mark
%w([<w>[,<i1>[,<i2>]]])
switch line wrapping, like the -w option of git-shortlog(1).
%<(<n>[,(trunc|ltrunc|mtrunc)])
make the next placeholder take at least N column widths,
padding spaces on the right if necessary. Optionally truncate
(with ellipsis ..) at the left (ltrunc) ..ft, the middle
(mtrunc) mi..le, or the end (trunc) rig.., if the output is
longer than <n> columns. Note 1: that truncating only works
correctly with <n> >= 2. Note 2: spaces around the <n> and
<m> (see below) values are optional. Note 3: Emojis and other
wide characters will take two display columns, which may
over-run column boundaries. Note 4: decomposed character
combining marks may be misplaced at padding boundaries.
%<|(<m> )
make the next placeholder take at least until <m> th display
column, padding spaces on the right if necessary. Use
negative <m> values for column positions measured from the
right hand edge of the terminal window.
%>(<n>), %>|(<m>)
similar to %<(<n>), %<|(<m>) respectively, but padding spaces
on the left
%>>(<n>), %>>|(<m>)
similar to %>(<n>), %>|(<m>) respectively, except that if the
next placeholder takes more spaces than given and there are
spaces on its left, use those spaces
%><(<n>), %><|(<m>)
similar to %<(<n>), %<|(<m>) respectively, but padding both
sides (i.e. the text is centered)
o Placeholders that expand to information extracted from the
commit:
%H
commit hash
%h
abbreviated commit hash
%T
tree hash
%t
abbreviated tree hash
%P
parent hashes
%p
abbreviated parent hashes
%an
author name
%aN
author name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or git-
blame(1))
%ae
author email
%aE
author email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or
git-blame(1))
%al
author email local-part (the part before the @ sign)
%aL
author local-part (see %al) respecting .mailmap, see git-
shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))
%ad
author date (format respects --date= option)
%aD
author date, RFC2822 style
%ar
author date, relative
%at
author date, UNIX timestamp
%ai
author date, ISO 8601-like format
%aI
author date, strict ISO 8601 format
%as
author date, short format (YYYY-MM-DD)
%ah
author date, human style (like the --date=human option of
git-rev-list(1))
%cn
committer name
%cN
committer name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or
git-blame(1))
%ce
committer email
%cE
committer email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog(1) or
git-blame(1))
%cl
committer email local-part (the part before the @ sign)
%cL
committer local-part (see %cl) respecting .mailmap, see git-
shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))
%cd
committer date (format respects --date= option)
%cD
committer date, RFC2822 style
%cr
committer date, relative
%ct
committer date, UNIX timestamp
%ci
committer date, ISO 8601-like format
%cI
committer date, strict ISO 8601 format
%cs
committer date, short format (YYYY-MM-DD)
%ch
committer date, human style (like the --date=human option of
git-rev-list(1))
%d
ref names, like the --decorate option of git-log(1)
%D
ref names without the " (", ")" wrapping.
%(count)
the number of a patch within a patch series. Used only in
--commit-list-format in format-patch
%(total)
the total number of patches in a patch series. Used only in
--commit-list-format in format-patch
%(decorate[:<option>,...])
ref names with custom decorations. The decorate string may be
followed by a colon and zero or more comma-separated options.
Option values may contain literal formatting codes. These
must be used for commas (%x2C) and closing parentheses
(%x29), due to their role in the option syntax.
prefix=<value>
Shown before the list of ref names. Defaults to " (".
suffix=<value>
Shown after the list of ref names. Defaults to ")".
separator=<value>
Shown between ref names. Defaults to ", ".
pointer=<value>
Shown between HEAD and the branch it points to, if any.
Defaults to " -> ".
tag=<value>
Shown before tag names. Defaults to "tag: ".
For example, to produce decorations with no wrapping or tag
annotations, and spaces as separators:
%(decorate:prefix=,suffix=,tag=,separator= )
%(describe[:<option>,...])
human-readable name, like git-describe(1); empty string for
undescribable commits. The describe string may be followed by
a colon and zero or more comma-separated options.
Descriptions can be inconsistent when tags are added or
removed at the same time.
tags[=<bool-value>]
Instead of only considering annotated tags, consider
lightweight tags as well.
abbrev=<number>
Instead of using the default number of hexadecimal digits
(which will vary according to the number of objects in
the repository with a default of 7) of the abbreviated
object name, use <number> digits, or as many digits as
needed to form a unique object name.
match=<pattern>
Only consider tags matching the given glob(7) <pattern>,
excluding the refs/tags/ prefix.
exclude=<pattern>
Do not consider tags matching the given glob(7)
<pattern>, excluding the refs/tags/ prefix.
%S
ref name given on the command line by which the commit was
reached (like git log --source), only works with git log
%e
encoding
%s
subject
%f
sanitized subject line, suitable for a filename
%b
body
%B
raw body (unwrapped subject and body)
%GG
raw verification message from GPG for a signed commit
%G?
show "G" for a good (valid) signature, "B" for a bad
signature, "U" for a good signature with unknown validity,
"X" for a good signature that has expired, "Y" for a good
signature made by an expired key, "R" for a good signature
made by a revoked key, "E" if the signature cannot be checked
(e.g. missing key) and "N" for no signature
%GS
show the name of the signer for a signed commit
%GK
show the key used to sign a signed commit
%GF
show the fingerprint of the key used to sign a signed commit
%GP
show the fingerprint of the primary key whose subkey was used
to sign a signed commit
%GT
show the trust level for the key used to sign a signed commit
%gD
reflog selector, e.g., refs/stash@{1} or refs/stash@{2
minutes ago}; the format follows the rules described for the
-g option. The portion before the @ is the refname as given
on the command line (so git log -g refs/heads/master would
yield refs/heads/master@{0}).
%gd
shortened reflog selector; same as %gD, but the refname
portion is shortened for human readability (so
refs/heads/master becomes just master).
%gn
reflog identity name
%gN
reflog identity name (respecting .mailmap, see git-
shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))
%ge
reflog identity email
%gE
reflog identity email (respecting .mailmap, see git-
shortlog(1) or git-blame(1))
%gs
reflog subject
%(trailers[:<option>,...])
display the trailers of the body as interpreted by git-
interpret-trailers(1). The trailers string may be followed by
a colon and zero or more comma-separated options. If any
option is provided multiple times, the last occurrence wins.
key=<key>
only show trailers with specified <key>. Matching is done
case-insensitively and trailing colon is optional. If
option is given multiple times trailer lines matching any
of the keys are shown. This option automatically enables
the only option so that non-trailer lines in the trailer
block are hidden. If that is not desired it can be
disabled with only=false. E.g.,
%(trailers:key=Reviewed-by) shows trailer lines with key
Reviewed-by.
only[=<bool>]
select whether non-trailer lines from the trailer block
should be included.
separator=<sep>
specify the separator inserted between trailer lines.
Defaults to a line feed character. The string <sep> may
contain the literal formatting codes described above. To
use comma as separator one must use %x2C as it would
otherwise be parsed as next option. E.g.,
%(trailers:key=Ticket,separator=%x2C ) shows all trailer
lines whose key is Ticket separated by a comma and a
space.
unfold[=<bool>]
make it behave as if interpret-trailer's --unfold option
was given. E.g., %(trailers:only,unfold=true) unfolds and
shows all trailer lines.
keyonly[=<bool>]
only show the key part of the trailer.
valueonly[=<bool>]
only show the value part of the trailer.
key_value_separator=<sep>
specify the separator inserted between the key and value
of each trailer. Defaults to ": ". Otherwise it shares
the same semantics as separator=<sep> above.
Note
Some placeholders may depend on other options given to the
revision traversal engine. For example, the %g* reflog
options will insert an empty string unless we are traversing
reflog entries (e.g., by git log -g). The %d and %D
placeholders will use the "short" decoration format if
--decorate was not already provided on the command line.
The boolean options accept an optional value [=<bool-value>]. The
values taken by --type=bool git-config(1), like yes and off, are
all accepted. Giving a boolean option without =<value> is
equivalent to giving it with =true.
If you add a + (plus sign) after % of a placeholder, a line-feed
is inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the
placeholder expands to a non-empty string.
If you add a - (minus sign) after % of a placeholder, all
consecutive line-feeds immediately preceding the expansion are
deleted if and only if the placeholder expands to an empty
string.
If you add a ' ' (space) after % of a placeholder, a space is
inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the
placeholder expands to a non-empty string.
tformat:
The tformat: format works exactly like format:, except that it
provides "terminator" semantics instead of "separator" semantics. In
other words, each commit has the message terminator character
(usually a newline) appended, rather than a separator placed between
entries. This means that the final entry of a single-line format will
be properly terminated with a new line, just as the "oneline" format
does. For example:
$ git log -2 --pretty=format:%h 4da45bef \
| perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
4da45be
7134973 -- NO NEWLINE
$ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef \
| perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
4da45be
7134973
In addition, any unrecognized string that has a % in it is
interpreted as if it has tformat: in front of it. For example, these
two are equivalent:
$ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef
$ git log -2 --pretty=%h 4da45bef
EXAMPLES
o Print the list of commits reachable from the current branch.
git rev-list HEAD
o Print the list of commits on this branch, but not present in the
upstream branch.
git rev-list @{upstream}..HEAD
o Format commits with their author and commit message (see also the
porcelain git-log(1)).
git rev-list --format=medium HEAD
o Format commits along with their diffs (see also the porcelain git-
log(1), which can do this in a single process).
git rev-list HEAD |
git diff-tree --stdin --format=medium -p
o Print the list of commits on the current branch that touched any file
in the Documentation directory.
git rev-list HEAD -- Documentation/
o Print the list of commits authored by you in the past year, on any
branch, tag, or other ref.
git rev-list --author=you@example.com --since=1.year.ago --all
o Print the list of objects reachable from the current branch (i.e.,
all commits and the blobs and trees they contain).
git rev-list --objects HEAD
o Compare the disk size of all reachable objects, versus those
reachable from reflogs, versus the total packed size. This can tell
you whether running git repack -ad might reduce the repository size
(by dropping unreachable objects), and whether expiring reflogs might
help.
# reachable objects
git rev-list --disk-usage --objects --all
# plus reflogs
git rev-list --disk-usage --objects --all --reflog
# total disk size used
du -c .git/objects/pack/*.pack .git/objects/??/*
# alternative to du: add up "size" and "size-pack" fields
git count-objects -v
o Report the disk size of each branch, not including objects used by
the current branch. This can find outliers that are contributing to a
bloated repository size (e.g., because somebody accidentally
committed large build artifacts).
git for-each-ref --format='%(refname)' |
while read branch
do
size=$(git rev-list --disk-usage --objects HEAD..$branch)
echo "$size $branch"
done |
sort -n
o Compare the on-disk size of branches in one group of refs, excluding
another. If you co-mingle objects from multiple remotes in a single
repository, this can show which remotes are contributing to the
repository size (taking the size of origin as a baseline).
git rev-list --disk-usage --objects --remotes=$suspect --not --remotes=origin
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.56.0 2026-09-27 git-rev-list(1)
git 2.56.0 - Generated Thu Oct 1 18:14:10 CDT 2026