git-show-branch - Show branches and their commits.
Shows the commit ancestry graph starting from the commits named with <rev>s or <globs>s (or all refs under $GIT_DIR/refs/heads and/or $GIT_DIR/refs/tags) semi-visually.
It cannot show more than 29 branches and commits at a time.
It uses showbranch.default multi-valued configuration items if no <rev> nor <glob> is given on the command line.
Arbitrary extended SHA1 expression (see git-rev-parse) that typically names a branch HEAD or a tag.
A glob pattern that matches branch or tag names under $GIT_DIR/refs. For example, if you have many topic branches under $GIT_DIR/refs/heads/topic, giving topic/* would show all of them.
Show all refs under $GIT_DIR/refs, $GIT_DIR/refs/heads, and $GIT_DIR/refs/tags, respectively.
With this option, the command includes the current branch to the list of revs to be shown when it is not given on the command line.
By default, the branches and their commits are shown in reverse chronological order. This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e., descendant commits are shown before their parents).
Usually the command stops output upon showing the commit that is the common ancestor of all the branches. This flag tells the command to go <n> more common commits beyond that. When <n> is negative, display only the <reference>s given, without showing the commit ancestry tree.
Synonym to --more=-1
Instead of showing the commit list, just act like the git-merge-base -a command, except that it can accept more than two heads.
Among the <reference>s given, display only the ones that cannot be reached from any other <reference>.
Do not show naming strings for each commit.
Instead of naming the commits using the path to reach them from heads (e.g. "master~2" to mean the grandparent of "master"), name them with the unique prefix of their object names.
Note that --more, --list, --independent and --merge-base options are mutually exclusive.
Given N <references>, the first N lines are the one-line description from their commit message. The branch head that is pointed at by $GIT_DIR/HEAD is prefixed with an asterisk * character while other heads are prefixed with a ! character.
Following these N lines, one-line log for each commit is displayed, indented N places. If a commit is on the I-th branch, the I-th indentation character shows a + sign; otherwise it shows a space. Merge commits are denoted by a - sign. Each commit shows a short name that can be used as an extended SHA1 to name that commit.
The following example shows three branches, "master", "fixes" and "mhf":
$ git show-branch master fixes mhf * [master] Add 'git show-branch'. ! [fixes] Introduce "reset type" flag to "git reset" ! [mhf] Allow "+remote:local" refspec to cause --force when fetching. --- + [mhf] Allow "+remote:local" refspec to cause --force when fetching. + [mhf~1] Use git-octopus when pulling more than one heads. + [fixes] Introduce "reset type" flag to "git reset" + [mhf~2] "git fetch --force". + [mhf~3] Use .git/remote/origin, not .git/branches/origin. + [mhf~4] Make "git pull" and "git fetch" default to origin + [mhf~5] Infamous 'octopus merge' + [mhf~6] Retire git-parse-remote. + [mhf~7] Multi-head fetch. + [mhf~8] Start adding the $GIT_DIR/remotes/ support. *++ [master] Add 'git show-branch'.
These three branches all forked from a common commit, [master], whose commit message is "Add git show-branch. "fixes" branch adds one commit Introduce "reset type". "mhf" branch has many other commits. The current branch is "master".
If you keep your primary branches immediately under $GIT_DIR/refs/heads, and topic branches in subdirectories of it, having the following in the configuration file may help:
[showbranch]
default = --topo-order
default = heads/*
With this,git show-branch without extra parameters would show only the primary branches. In addition, if you happen to be on your topic branch, it is shown as well.
Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Documentation by Junio C Hamano.
Part of the git(7) suite