git-rev-list(1) =============== v0.1, May 2005 NAME ---- git-rev-list - Lists commit objects in reverse chronological order SYNOPSIS -------- 'git-rev-list' [ *--max-count*=number ] [ *--max-age*=timestamp ] [ *--min-age*=timestamp ] [ *--bisect* ] [ *--pretty* ] [ *--objects* ] [ *--merge-order* [ *--show-breaks* ] ] [ ...] [ ^ ...] DESCRIPTION ----------- 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'". If *--pretty* is specified, print the contents of the commit changesets in human-readable form. The *--objects* flag causes 'git-rev-list' to 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'". The *--bisect* flag limits 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. If *--merge-order* is 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 link: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. If *--show-breaks* is specified, 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 arbtirary DAG in a linear form. *--show-breaks* is only valid if *--merge-order* is also specified. Author ------ Written by Linus Torvalds Original *--merge-order* logic by Jon Seymour Documentation -------------- Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list . GIT --- Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite