git-rev-list - Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order

git-rev-list [ --max-count=number ]
             [ --max-age=timestamp ]
             [ --min-age=timestamp ]
             [ --sparse ]
             [ --no-merges ]
             [ --all ]
             [ [ --merge-order [ --show-breaks ] ] | [ --topo-order ] ]
             [ --parents ]
             [ --objects [ --unpacked ] ]
             [ --pretty | --header ]
             [ --bisect ]
             <commit>... [ -- <paths>... ]

Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order starting at the given commit(s), taking ancestry relationship into account. This is useful to produce human-readable log output.

Commits which are stated with a preceding ^ cause listing to stop at that point. Their parents are implied. "git-rev-list foo bar ^baz" thus means "list all the commits which are included in foo and bar, but not in baz".

A special notation <commit1>..<commit2> can be used as a short-hand for ^<commit1> <commit2>.

--pretty

Print the contents of the commit changesets in human-readable form.

--header

Print the contents of the commit in raw-format; each record is separated with a NUL character.

--objects

Print the object IDs of any object referenced by the listed commits. git-rev-list --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".

--unpacked

Only useful with --objects; print the object IDs that are not in packs.

--bisect

Limit output to the one commit object which is roughly halfway between the included and excluded commits. Thus, if git-rev-list --bisect foo bar baz outputs midpoint, the output of git-rev-list foo ^midpoint and 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.

--max-count

Limit the number of commits output.

--max-age=timestamp, --min-age=timestamp

Limit the commits output to specified time range.

--sparse

When optional paths are given, the command outputs only the commits that changes at least one of them, and also ignores merges that do not touch the given paths. This flag makes the command output all eligible commits (still subject to count and age limitation), but apply merge simplification nevertheless.

--all

Pretend as if all the refs in $GIT_DIR/refs/ are listed on the command line as <commit>.

--topo-order

By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order. This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e. descendant commits are shown before their parents).

--merge-order

When specified the commit history is decomposed into a unique sequence of minimal, non-linear epochs and maximal, linear epochs. Non-linear epochs are then linearised by sorting them into merge order, which is described below.

Maximal, linear epochs correspond to periods of sequential development. Minimal, non-linear epochs correspond to periods of divergent development followed by a converging merge. The theory of epochs is described in more detail at http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/: http://blackcubes.dyndns.org/epoch/.

The merge order for a non-linear epoch is defined as a linearisation for which the following invariants are true:

1.

if a commit P is reachable from commit N, commit P sorts after commit N in the linearised list.

2.

if Pi and Pj are any two parents of a merge M (with i < j), then any commit N, such that N is reachable from Pj but not reachable from Pi, sorts before all commits reachable from Pi.

Invariant 1 states that later commits appear before earlier commits they are derived from.

Invariant 2 states that commits unique to "later" parents in a merge, appear before all commits from "earlier" parents of a merge.

--show-breaks

Each item of the list is output with a 2-character prefix consisting of one of: (|), (^), (=) followed by a space.

Commits marked with (=) represent the boundaries of minimal, non-linear epochs and correspond either to the start of a period of divergent development or to the end of such a period.

Commits marked with (|) are direct parents of commits immediately preceding the marked commit in the list.

Commits marked with (^) are not parents of the immediately preceding commit. These "breaks" represent necessary discontinuities implied by trying to represent an arbitrary DAG in a linear form.

--show-breaks is only valid if --merge-order is also specified.

Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

Original --merge-order logic by Jon Seymour <jon.seymour@gmail.com>

Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.

Part of the git(7) suite