#git-log

If you’re comparing 2 branches in git you can see which commits are on one vs the other with “git log branch1..branch2″

If you’re like me, you always forget if this will show you the commits in branch1 that aren’t in branch2 or vice versa. Fortunately I’ve thought of a good way to remember.

The git log command can be a very useful tool to tell a clear story of the evolution of your Software. In fact, a single read though it can be enough to understand the how and the why of the current state of your project. Take into account the following options:

Follow a chronological order

Commit the changes in a chronological sensible order. Commits focusing on related components of your application should be recorded one after another. Following the history of a file should be as smooth as possible.

Use a clear redaction

Use both, the short and the long message features of the commit command to record a clear explanation of what, how and why has changed. Don't be afraid of being verbose. Reading the messages should be enough to understand a change, and using the diff tool should no longer be necessary.

Stay in context

Separate the commits by type and context: a refactor, a fix, a typo correction. Separate actual logic changes from coding style changes.

Branch off

By branching off, you create a sub-story of a certain change. The merge commit then indicates when that sub-story crossed paths with the main story.

A learning tool

Good organized commits can be used to teach and to learn. Think of it as a step-by-step tutorial, tracking the exact changes of a component.

Useful tools:

# Git commands git add --patch git add --interactive git commit --amend/--interactive/--squash/--fixup git rebase --interactive # Pretty log alias: git log --pretty='format:%Cgreen%h%Creset %s' --graph

After all, which of the following logs tells you a better story:

This?

Or this:

Solution: View the change history of a file using Git versioning #dev #it #computers

View the change history of a file using Git versioning

How can I view the change history of an individual file in Git, complete with what has changed?

I have got as far as:

git log [filename]

which shows me the commit history of the file, but how do I get at the content of each of the changes?

I’m trying to make the transition from MS SourceSafe and that used to be a simple right-click → show…

How to: View the change history of a file using Git versioning

View the change history of a file using Git versioning

How can I view the change history of an individual file in Git, complete with what has changed?

I have got as far as:

git log [filename]

which shows me the commit history of the file, but how do I get at the content of each of the changes?

I’m trying to make the transition from MS SourceSafe and that used to be a simple right-click → show…

This is very awesome!!

Assuming that your branch was created off of master :

git log master..

OR

Teacher: teh Googles and my own intelligence. (OMG A FIRST.)

If, like in my previous post, you are reading a big git log -p --reverse e4bb271..HEAD or similar, you might want to duck in and out to make notes. Maybe you want to jump a few lines. For whatever reason, let's assume you want to use line numbers and you want to use the standard less.

When inside the git log, type -N or --LINE-NUMBERS if you're feeling particularly masochistic (source). This will make the line numbers appear, and you'll lose half your terminal window to leading whitespace on those numbers.

Teacher: @jasoncodes

Sometimes, when you're being a responsible team member and developer, you'll be in the position of having to read a bunch of other people's commits. If your team codes well, they will be finely grained and in reverse chronological order, but scrolling from the bottom of a lessed git log -p is not my favourite way of reading code.

Enter git log --reverse. Use this in conjunction with ranged commit hash arguments and -p to reverse the order of a series of commits while viewing the modifications.

For example:

$ git log --reverse -p origin/master..HEAD $ git log --reverse -p e1c21f8..a8d733b