-n, --numbered
Sort output according to the number of commits per author
instead of author alphabetic order.
-s, --summary
Suppress commit description and provide a commit count
summary only.
-e, --email
Show the email address of each author.
--format[=<format>]
Instead of the commit subject, use some other information to
describe each commit. <format> can be any string accepted by
the --format option of git log, such as * [%h] %s. (See the
"PRETTY FORMATS" section of git-log(1).)
Each pretty-printed commit will be rewrapped before it is shown.
--group=<type>
Group commits based on <type>. If no --group option is
specified, the default is author. <type> is one of:
• author, commits are grouped by author
• committer, commits are grouped by committer (the same as
-c)
• trailer:<field>, the <field> is interpreted as a
case-insensitive commit message trailer (see
git-interpret-trailers(1)). For example, if your project
uses Reviewed-by trailers, you might want to see who has
been reviewing with git shortlog -ns
--group=trailer:reviewed-by.
Note that commits that do not include the trailer will
not be counted. Likewise, commits with multiple trailers
(e.g., multiple signoffs) may be counted more than once
(but only once per unique trailer value in that commit).
Shortlog will attempt to parse each trailer value as a
name <email> identity. If successful, the mailmap is
applied and the email is omitted unless the --email
option is specified. If the value cannot be parsed as an
identity, it will be taken literally and completely.
If --group is specified multiple times, commits are counted
under each value (but again, only once per unique value in
that commit). For example, git shortlog --group=author
--group=trailer:co-authored-by counts both authors and
co-authors.
-c, --committer
This is an alias for --group=committer.
-w[<width>[,<indent1>[,<indent2>]]]
Linewrap the output by wrapping each line at width. The first
line of each entry is indented by indent1 spaces, and the
second and subsequent lines are indented by indent2 spaces.
width, indent1, and indent2 default to 76, 6 and 9
respectively.
If width is 0 (zero) then indent the lines of the output
without wrapping them.
<revision range>
Show only commits in the specified revision range. When no
<revision range> is specified, it defaults to HEAD (i.e. the
whole history leading to the current commit). origin..HEAD
specifies all the commits reachable from the current commit
(i.e. HEAD), but not from origin. For a complete list of
ways to spell <revision range>, see the "Specifying Ranges"
section of gitrevisions(7).
[--] <path>...
Consider only commits that are enough to explain how the
files that match the specified paths came to be.
Paths may need to be prefixed with -- to separate them from
options or the revision range, when confusion arises.
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 number of commits to output.
--skip=<number>
Skip number commits before starting to show the commit
output.
--since=<date>, --after=<date>
Show commits more recent than a specific date.
--until=<date>, --before=<date>
Show commits older than a specific date.
--author=<pattern>, --committer=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header
lines that match the specified pattern (regular expression).
With more than one --author=<pattern>, commits whose author
matches any of the given patterns are chosen (similarly for
multiple --committer=<pattern>).
--grep-reflog=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with reflog entries that
match the specified 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 log message that
matches the specified pattern (regular expression). With more
than one --grep=<pattern>, commits whose message matches any
of the given patterns 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 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
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.
--not
Reverses the meaning of the ^ prefix (or lack thereof) for
all following revision specifiers, up to the next --not.
--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.
--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 the <commit> listed on the command line, read
them from the standard input. If a -- separator is seen, stop
reading commits and start reading paths to limit the result.
--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
After a failed merge, show refs that touch files having a
conflict and don't exist on all heads to 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
When given a range of commits to display (e.g.
commit1..commit2 or commit2 ^commit1), only display commits
that exist directly on the ancestry chain between the commit1
and commit2, i.e. commits that are both descendants of
commit1, and ancestors of commit2.
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
Limit the displayed commits to those directly on the ancestry
chain between the 'from' and 'to' commits in the given commit
range. I.e. only display commits that are ancestor of the
'to' commit and descendants of the 'from' commit.
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
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: manu 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).
