NAME
gitrevisions - Specifying revisions and ranges for GitSYNOPSIS
gitrevisionsDESCRIPTION
Many Git commands take revision parameters as arguments. Depending on the command, they denote a specific commit or, for commands which walk the revision graph (such as git-log(1)), all commits which are reachable from that commit. For commands that walk the revision graph one can also specify a range of revisions explicitly.SPECIFYING REVISIONS
A revision parameter <rev> typically, but not necessarily, names a commit object. It uses what is called an extended SHA-1 syntax. Here are various ways to spell object names. The ones listed near the end of this list name trees and blobs contained in a commit.The full SHA-1 object name (40-byte
hexadecimal string), or a leading substring that is unique within the
repository. E.g. dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735 and dae86e both name
the same commit object if there is no other object in your repository whose
object name starts with dae86e.
<describeOutput>, e.g. v1.7.4.2-679-g3bee7fb
Output from git describe; i.e. a
closest tag, optionally followed by a dash and a number of commits, followed
by a dash, a g, and an abbreviated object name.
<refname>, e.g. master, heads/master,
refs/heads/master
A symbolic ref name. E.g. master
typically means the commit object referenced by refs/heads/master. If
you happen to have both heads/master and tags/master, you can
explicitly say heads/master to tell Git which one you mean. When
ambiguous, a <refname> is disambiguated by taking the first match
in the following rules:
@
1.If $GIT_DIR/<refname> exists,
that is what you mean (this is usually useful only for HEAD,
FETCH_HEAD, ORIG_HEAD, MERGE_HEAD and
CHERRY_PICK_HEAD);
2.otherwise, refs/<refname> if
it exists;
3.otherwise, refs/tags/<refname>
if it exists;
4.otherwise,
refs/heads/<refname> if it exists;
5.otherwise,
refs/remotes/<refname> if it exists;
6.otherwise,
refs/remotes/<refname>/HEAD if it exists.
HEAD names the commit on which you based the changes in the working tree.
FETCH_HEAD records the branch which you fetched from a remote
repository with your last git fetch invocation. ORIG_HEAD is
created by commands that move your HEAD in a drastic way, to record the
position of the HEAD before their operation, so that you can easily
change the tip of the branch back to the state before you ran them.
MERGE_HEAD records the commit(s) which you are merging into your branch
when you run git merge. CHERRY_PICK_HEAD records the commit
which you are cherry-picking when you run git cherry-pick.
Note that any of the refs/* cases above may come either from the
$GIT_DIR/refs directory or from the $GIT_DIR/packed-refs file.
While the ref name encoding is unspecified, UTF-8 is preferred as some output
processing may assume ref names in UTF-8.
@ alone is a shortcut for
HEAD.
[<refname>]@{<date>}, e.g. master@{yesterday},
HEAD@{5 minutes ago}
A ref followed by the suffix @ with a
date specification enclosed in a brace pair (e.g. {yesterday}, {1
month 2 weeks 3 days 1 hour 1 second ago} or {1979-02-26 18:30:00})
specifies the value of the ref at a prior point in time. This suffix may only
be used immediately following a ref name and the ref must have an existing log
( $GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>). Note that this looks up the state of your
local ref at a given time; e.g., what was in your local master
branch last week. If you want to look at commits made during certain times,
see --since and --until.
<refname>@{<n>}, e.g. master@{1}
A ref followed by the suffix @ with an
ordinal specification enclosed in a brace pair (e.g. {1}, {15})
specifies the n-th prior value of that ref. For example master@{1} is
the immediate prior value of master while master@{5} is the 5th
prior value of master. This suffix may only be used immediately
following a ref name and the ref must have an existing log (
$GIT_DIR/logs/<refname>).
@{<n>}, e.g. @{1}
You can use the @ construct with an
empty ref part to get at a reflog entry of the current branch. For example, if
you are on branch blabla then @{1} means the same as
blabla@{1}.
@{-<n>}, e.g. @{-1}
The construct @{-<n>} means the
<n>th branch/commit checked out before the current one.
[<branchname>]@{upstream}, e.g. master@{upstream},
@{u}
A branch B may be set up to build on top of a
branch X (configured with branch.<name>.merge) at a remote R
(configured with the branch X taken from remote R, typically found at
refs/remotes/R/X.
[<branchname>]@{push}, e.g. master@{push}, @{push}
The suffix @{push} reports the branch
"where we would push to" if git push were run while
branchname was checked out (or the current HEAD if no branchname
is specified). Like for @{upstream}, we report the remote-tracking
branch that corresponds to that branch at the remote.
Here’s an example to make it more clear:
Note in the example that we set up a triangular workflow, where we pull from one
location and push to another. In a non-triangular workflow, @{push} is
the same as @{upstream}, and there is no need for it.
This suffix is also accepted when spelled in uppercase, and means the same thing
no matter the case.
<rev>^[<n>], e.g. HEAD^, v1.5.1^0
$ git config push.default current $ git config remote.pushdefault myfork $ git switch -c mybranch origin/master $ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{upstream} refs/remotes/origin/master $ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{push} refs/remotes/myfork/mybranch
A suffix ^ to a revision parameter
means the first parent of that commit object. ^<n> means the
<n>th parent (i.e. <rev>^ is equivalent to
<rev>^1). As a special rule, <rev>^0 means the
commit itself and is used when <rev> is the object name of a tag
object that refers to a commit object.
<rev>~[<n>], e.g. HEAD~, master~3
A suffix ~ to a revision parameter
means the first parent of that commit object. A suffix ~<n> to a
revision parameter means the commit object that is the <n>th generation
ancestor of the named commit object, following only the first parents. I.e.
<rev>~3 is equivalent to <rev>^^^ which is
equivalent to <rev>^1^1^1. See below for an illustration of the
usage of this form.
<rev>^{<type>}, e.g. v0.99.8^{commit}
A suffix ^ followed by an object type
name enclosed in brace pair means dereference the object at <rev>
recursively until an object of type <type> is found or the object
cannot be dereferenced anymore (in which case, barf). For example, if
<rev> is a commit-ish, <rev>^{commit} describes the
corresponding commit object. Similarly, if <rev> is a tree-ish,
<rev>^{tree} describes the corresponding tree object.
<rev>^0 is a short-hand for <rev>^{commit}.
<rev>^{object} can be used to make sure <rev> names an
object that exists, without requiring <rev> to be a tag, and
without dereferencing <rev>; because a tag is already an object,
it does not have to be dereferenced even once to get to an object.
<rev>^{tag} can be used to ensure that <rev>
identifies an existing tag object.
<rev>^{}, e.g. v0.99.8^{}
A suffix ^ followed by an empty brace
pair means the object could be a tag, and dereference the tag recursively
until a non-tag object is found.
<rev>^{/<text>}, e.g. HEAD^{/fix nasty bug}
A suffix ^ to a revision parameter,
followed by a brace pair that contains a text led by a slash, is the same as
the :/fix nasty bug syntax below except that it returns the youngest
matching commit which is reachable from the <rev> before
^.
:/<text>, e.g. :/fix nasty bug
A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a
text, names a commit whose commit message matches the specified regular
expression. This name returns the youngest matching commit which is reachable
from any ref, including HEAD. The regular expression can match any part of the
commit message. To match messages starting with a string, one can use e.g.
:/^foo. The special sequence :/! is reserved for modifiers to
what is matched. :/!-foo performs a negative match, while
:/!!foo matches a literal ! character, followed by foo.
Any other sequence beginning with :/! is reserved for now. Depending on
the given text, the shell’s word splitting rules might require
additional quoting.
<rev>:<path>, e.g. HEAD:README, master:./README
A suffix : followed by a path names the
blob or tree at the given path in the tree-ish object named by the part before
the colon. A path starting with ./ or ../ is relative to the
current working directory. The given path will be converted to be relative to
the working tree’s root directory. This is most useful to address a
blob or tree from a commit or tree that has the same tree structure as the
working tree.
:[<n>:]<path>, e.g. :0:README, :README
A colon, optionally followed by a stage number
(0 to 3) and a colon, followed by a path, names a blob object in the index at
the given path. A missing stage number (and the colon that follows it) names a
stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage 1 is the common ancestor, stage 2 is the
target branch’s version (typically the current branch), and stage 3 is
the version from the branch which is being merged.
G H I J \ / \ / D E F \ | / \ \ | / | \|/ | B C \ / \ / A
A = = A^0 B = A^ = A^1 = A~1 C = = A^2 D = A^^ = A^1^1 = A~2 E = B^2 = A^^2 F = B^3 = A^^3 G = A^^^ = A^1^1^1 = A~3 H = D^2 = B^^2 = A^^^2 = A~2^2 I = F^ = B^3^ = A^^3^ J = F^2 = B^3^2 = A^^3^2
SPECIFYING RANGES
History traversing commands such as git log operate on a set of commits, not just a single commit.Commit Exclusions
^<rev> (caret) NotationTo exclude commits reachable from a commit, a
prefix ^ notation is used. E.g. ^r1 r2 means commits reachable
from r2 but exclude the ones reachable from r1 (i.e. r1
and its ancestors).
Dotted Range Notations
The .. (two-dot) Range NotationThe ^r1 r2 set operation appears so
often that there is a shorthand for it. When you have two commits r1
and r2 (named according to the syntax explained in SPECIFYING REVISIONS
above), you can ask for commits that are reachable from r2 excluding those
that are reachable from r1 by ^r1 r2 and it can be written as
r1..r2.
The ... (three-dot) Symmetric Difference Notation
A similar notation r1...r2 is called
symmetric difference of r1 and r2 and is defined as r1 r2
--not $(git merge-base --all r1 r2). It is the set of commits that are
reachable from either one of r1 (left side) or r2 (right side)
but not from both.
$ git log A..B C..D
---A---B---o---o---C---D
Other <rev>^ Parent Shorthand Notations
Three other shorthands exist, particularly useful for merge commits, for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its parent commits.REVISION RANGE SUMMARY
<rev>Include commits that are reachable from
<rev> (i.e. <rev> and its ancestors).
^<rev>
Exclude commits that are reachable from
<rev> (i.e. <rev> and its ancestors).
<rev1>..<rev2>
Include commits that are reachable from
<rev2> but exclude those that are reachable from <rev1>. When
either <rev1> or <rev2> is omitted, it defaults to
HEAD.
<rev1>...<rev2>
Include commits that are reachable from either
<rev1> or <rev2> but exclude those that are reachable from both.
When either <rev1> or <rev2> is omitted, it defaults to
HEAD.
<rev>^@, e.g. HEAD^@
A suffix ^ followed by an at sign is
the same as listing all parents of <rev> (meaning, include
anything reachable from its parents, but not the commit itself).
<rev>^!, e.g. HEAD^!
A suffix ^ followed by an exclamation
mark is the same as giving commit <rev> and all its parents
prefixed with ^ to exclude them (and their ancestors).
<rev>^-<n>, e.g. HEAD^-, HEAD^-2
Equivalent to
<rev>^<n>..<rev>, with <n> = 1 if not
given.
Args Expanded arguments Selected commits D G H D D F G H I J D F ^G D H D ^D B E I J F B ^D B C E I J F B C C I J F C B..C = ^B C C B...C = B ^F C G H D E B C B^- = B^..B = ^B^1 B E I J F B C^@ = C^1 = F I J F B^@ = B^1 B^2 B^3 = D E F D G H E F I J C^! = C ^C^@ = C ^C^1 = C ^F C B^! = B ^B^@ = B ^B^1 ^B^2 ^B^3 = B ^D ^E ^F B F^! D = F ^I ^J D G H D F
SEE ALSO
git-rev-parse(1)GIT
Part of the git(1) suite02/28/2023 | Git 2.39.2 |