git-show-branch - Show branches and their commits.

git-show-branch [--all] [--heads] [--tags] [--topo-order] [--more=<n> | --list | --independent | --merge-base] [--no-name | --sha1-name] [<rev> | <glob>]...

Shows the commit ancestry graph starting from the commits named with <rev>s or <globs>s (or all refs under $GIT_DIR/refs/heads and/or $GIT_DIR/refs/tags) semi-visually.

It cannot show more than 29 branches and commits at a time.

<rev>

Arbitrary extended SHA1 expression (see git-rev-parse) that typically names a branch HEAD or a tag.

<glob>

A glob pattern that matches branch or tag names under $GIT_DIR/refs. For example, if you have many topic branches under $GIT_DIR/refs/heads/topic, giving topic/* would show all of them.

--all --heads --tags

Show all refs under $GIT_DIR/refs, $GIT_DIR/refs/heads, and $GIT_DIR/refs/tags, respectively.

--topo-order

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

--more=<n>

Usually the command stops output upon showing the commit that is the common ancestor of all the branches. This flag tells the command to go <n> more common commits beyond that. When <n> is negative, display only the <reference>s given, without showing the commit ancestry tree.

--list

Synomym to --more=-1

--merge-base

Instead of showing the commit list, just act like the git-merge-base -a command, except that it can accept more than two heads.

--independent

Among the <reference>s given, display only the ones that cannot be reached from any other <reference>.

--no-name

Do not show naming strings for each commit.

--sha1-name

Instead of naming the commits using the path to reach them from heads (e.g. "master~2" to mean the grandparent of "master"), name them with the unique prefix of their object names.

Note that --more, --list, --independent and --merge-base options are mutually exclusive.

Given N <references>, the first N lines are the one-line description from their commit message. The branch head that is pointed at by $GIT_DIR/HEAD is prefixed with an asterisk * character while other heads are prefixed with a ! character.

Following these N lines, one-line log for each commit is displayed, indented N places. If a commit is on the I-th branch, the I-th indentation character shows a + sign; otherwise it shows a space. Each commit shows a short name that can be used as an extended SHA1 to name that commit.

The following example shows three branches, "master", "fixes" and "mhf":

$ git show-branch master fixes mhf ! [master] Add 'git show-branch'. ! [fixes] Introduce "reset type" flag to "git reset" ! [mhf] Allow "+remote:local" refspec to cause --force when fetching. --- + [mhf] Allow "+remote:local" refspec to cause --force when fetching. + [mhf~1] Use git-octopus when pulling more than one heads. + [fixes] Introduce "reset type" flag to "git reset" + [mhf~2] "git fetch --force". + [mhf~3] Use .git/remote/origin, not .git/branches/origin. + [mhf~4] Make "git pull" and "git fetch" default to origin + [mhf~5] Infamous 'octopus merge' + [mhf~6] Retire git-parse-remote. + [mhf~7] Multi-head fetch. + [mhf~8] Start adding the $GIT_DIR/remotes/ support. +++ [master] Add 'git show-branch'.

These three branches all forked from a common commit, [master], whose commit message is "Add git show-branch. "fixes" branch adds one commit Introduce "reset type". "mhf" branch has many other commits.

Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>

Documentation by Junio C Hamano.

Part of the git(7) suite