SYNOPSIS

git whatchanged <option>…

DESCRIPTION

Shows commit logs and diff output each commit introduces. The command internally invokes git rev-list piped to git diff-tree, and takes command line options for both of these commands.

This manual page describes only the most frequently used options.

OPTIONS

-p

Show textual diffs, instead of the git internal diff output format that is useful only to tell the changed paths and their nature of changes.

-<n>

Limit output to <n> commits.

<since>..<until>

Limit output to between the two named commits (bottom exclusive, top inclusive).

-r

Show git internal diff output, but for the whole tree, not just the top level.

-m

By default, differences for merge commits are not shown. With this flag, show differences to that commit from all of its parents.

However, it is not very useful in general, although it is useful on a file-by-file basis.

--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, email, raw and format:<string>. See the "PRETTY FORMATS" section for some additional details for each format. When omitted, the format 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 only a partial prefix. Non default number of digits can be specified with "--abbrev=<n>" (which also modifies diff output, if it is displayed).

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 and those options which imply it such as "--oneline". It also overrides the log.abbrevCommit variable.

--oneline

This is a shorthand for "--pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit" used together.

--encoding[=<encoding>]

The commit objects record the 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.

--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 nor --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, show this notes ref instead of the default notes ref(s). The ref is taken to be in refs/notes/ if it is not qualified.

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[=<ref>]
--[no-]standard-notes

These options are deprecated. Use the above --notes/--no-notes options instead.

PRETTY FORMATS

If the commit is a merge, and if the pretty-format is not oneline, email or raw, an additional line is inserted before the Author: line. This line begins with "Merge: " and the sha1s of ancestral commits are printed, separated by spaces. Note that the listed commits may not necessarily be the list of the direct parent commits if you have limited your view of history: for example, if you are only interested in changes related to a certain directory or file.

There are several built-in formats, and you can define additional formats by setting a pretty.<name> config option to either another format name, or a format: string, as described below (see git-config(1)). Here are the details of the built-in formats:

Note
Some placeholders may depend on other options given to the revision traversal engine. For example, the %g* reflog options will insert an empty string unless we are traversing reflog entries (e.g., by git log -g). The %d placeholder will use the "short" decoration format if --decorate was not already provided on the command line.

If you add a + (plus sign) after % of a placeholder, a line-feed is inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

If you add a - (minus sign) after % of a placeholder, line-feeds that immediately precede the expansion are deleted if and only if the placeholder expands to an empty string.

If you add a ` ` (space) after % of a placeholder, a space is inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

Examples

git whatchanged -p v2.6.12.. include/scsi drivers/scsi

Show as patches the commits since version v2.6.12 that changed any file in the include/scsi or drivers/scsi subdirectories

git whatchanged --since="2 weeks ago" -- gitk

Show the changes during the last two weeks to the file gitk. The "--" is necessary to avoid confusion with the branch named gitk

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite