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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OUTPUT | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | GIT | COLOPHON |
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GIT-REPLAY(1) Git Manual GIT-REPLAY(1)
git-replay - EXPERIMENTAL: Replay commits on a new base, works
with bare repos too
(EXPERIMENTAL!) git replay ([--contained] --onto <newbase> | --advance <branch>) <revision-range>...
Takes ranges of commits and replays them onto a new location.
Leaves the working tree and the index untouched, and updates no
references. The output of this command is meant to be used as
input to git update-ref --stdin, which would update the relevant
branches (see the OUTPUT section below).
THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. THE BEHAVIOR MAY CHANGE.
--onto <newbase>
Starting point at which to create the new commits. May be any
valid commit, and not just an existing branch name.
When --onto is specified, the update-ref command(s) in the
output will update the branch(es) in the revision range to
point at the new commits, similar to the way how git rebase
--update-refs updates multiple branches in the affected range.
--advance <branch>
Starting point at which to create the new commits; must be a
branch name.
When --advance is specified, the update-ref command(s) in the
output will update the branch passed as an argument to
--advance to point at the new commits (in other words, this
mimics a cherry-pick operation).
<revision-range>
Range of commits to replay. More than one <revision-range> can
be passed, but in --advance <branch> mode, they should have a
single tip, so that it’s clear where <branch> should point to.
See "Specifying Ranges" in git-rev-parse(1) and the "Commit
Limiting" options below.
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 <number> commits.
--skip=<number>
Skip <number> commits before starting to show the commit
output.
--since=<date>, --after=<date>
Show commits more recent than <date>.
--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>.
--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).
When --notes is in effect, the message from the notes is
matched as if it were part of the log message.
--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.
--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.
--bisect
Pretend as if the bad bisection ref refs/bisect/bad was listed
and as if it was followed by --not and the good bisection refs
refs/bisect/good-* on the command line.
--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.
--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 -.
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:
• 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.
• In A, foo contains just foo.
• B contains the same change as A. Its merge M is trivial and
hence TREESAME to all parents.
• C does not change foo, but its merge N changes it to foobar,
so it is not TREESAME to any parent.
• 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.
• E changes quux to xyzzy, and its merge P combines the strings
to quux xyzzy. P is TREESAME to O, but not to E.
• 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:
• Set C' to C.
• 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.
• 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:
• N's parent list had I removed, because it is an ancestor
of the other parent M. Still, N remained because it is
!TREESAME.
• P's parent list similarly had I removed. P was then
removed completely, because it had one parent and is
TREESAME.
• 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).
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.
--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
--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).
--notes[=<ref>]
Show the notes (see git-notes(1)) that annotate the commit,
when showing the commit log message. This is the default for
git log, git show and git whatchanged commands when there is
no --pretty, --format, or --oneline option given on the
command line.
By default, the notes shown are from the notes refs listed in
the core.notesRef and notes.displayRef variables (or
corresponding environment overrides). See git-config(1) for
more details.
With an optional <ref> argument, use the ref to find the notes
to display. The ref can specify the full refname when it
begins with refs/notes/; when it begins with notes/, refs/ and
otherwise refs/notes/ is prefixed to form the full name of the
ref.
Multiple --notes options can be combined to control which
notes are being displayed. Examples: "--notes=foo" will show
only notes from refs/notes/foo; "--notes=foo --notes" will
show both notes from "refs/notes/foo" and from the default
notes ref(s).
--no-notes
Do not show notes. This negates the above --notes option, by
resetting the list of notes refs from which notes are shown.
Options are parsed in the order given on the command line, so
e.g. "--notes --notes=foo --no-notes --notes=bar" will only
show notes from refs/notes/bar.
--show-notes-by-default
Show the default notes unless options for displaying specific
notes are given.
--show-notes[=<ref>], --standard-notes, --no-standard-notes
These options are deprecated. Use the above --notes/--no-notes
options instead.
--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:
• a space instead of the T date/time delimiter
• a space between time and time zone
• 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.
--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.
--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.
When there are no conflicts, the output of this command is usable
as input to git update-ref --stdin. It is of the form:
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch3 ${NEW_branch3_HASH} ${OLD_branch3_HASH}
where the number of refs updated depends on the arguments passed
and the shape of the history being replayed. When using --advance,
the number of refs updated is always one, but for --onto, it can
be one or more (rebasing multiple branches simultaneously is
supported).
For a successful, non-conflicted replay, the exit status is 0.
When the replay has conflicts, the exit status is 1. If the replay
is not able to complete (or start) due to some kind of error, the
exit status is something other than 0 or 1.
To simply rebase mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --onto target origin/main..mybranch
update refs/heads/mybranch ${NEW_mybranch_HASH} ${OLD_mybranch_HASH}
To cherry-pick the commits from mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --advance target origin/main..mybranch
update refs/heads/target ${NEW_target_HASH} ${OLD_target_HASH}
Note that the first two examples replay the exact same commits and
on top of the exact same new base, they only differ in that the
first provides instructions to make mybranch point at the new
commits and the second provides instructions to make target point
at them.
What if you have a stack of branches, one depending upon another,
and you’d really like to rebase the whole set?
$ git replay --contained --onto origin/main origin/main..tipbranch
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/tipbranch ${NEW_tipbranch_HASH} ${OLD_tipbranch_HASH}
When calling git replay, one does not need to specify a range of
commits to replay using the syntax A..B; any range expression will
do:
$ git replay --onto origin/main ^base branch1 branch2 branch3
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch3 ${NEW_branch3_HASH} ${OLD_branch3_HASH}
This will simultaneously rebase branch1, branch2, and branch3, all
commits they have since base, playing them on top of origin/main.
These three branches may have commits on top of base that they
have in common, but that does not need to be the case.
Part of the git(1) suite
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-REPLAY(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1)
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