How to search in commit messages using command line?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to search through all commits in the repository?

Is there a way to search through commit headers using the command line?

This is not really a duplicate, the other question asks about dangling commits while **this one does not**. Voting to reopen. — sashoalm, Feb 10 '15 at 16:43
Ah. But this is a duplicate of [this one](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7124914/how-to-search-a-git-repository-by-commit-message). While this one is the older question, the newer one has better answers imho. I wish I could revoke my vote to reopen. — cfi, Sep 05 '15 at 08:42
Don't forget to use `--all` to search in non-ancestor commits :} — user2864740, Sep 20 '18 at 00:16

score 617 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 11 '22 at 22:39

617

git log --grep=<pattern>
    Limit the commits output to ones with log message that matches the 
    specified pattern (regular expression).

edited Jul 11 '22 at 22:39

Boris Verkhovskiy

answered Sep 30 '10 at 00:09

hobbs

3

I think this answer is partially wrong, because the `--grep` option searches the whole commit message, instead of just the header. @czchen's answer is more correct, in this case. – pedromanoel Oct 10 '13 at 18:53
16

except for that fact that czchen's answer requires the use of an external grep utility – david.barkhuizen Oct 03 '14 at 07:22
Thank you this helped me a lot, before that I used ack-grep. – Denis Denisov Nov 29 '14 at 14:13
7

This does not answer OP's question about headers specifically, but it did answer mine about commit messages in general - and not only mine, since it's #1 link in google for "git search commit messages" – Daerdemandt Oct 28 '16 at 18:34
Another benefit of this answer is that you can do things like `git log --name-only --grep=foo` if you want more information. – Matt Dec 02 '16 at 22:04
1

It might also be worth mentioning that this will only search your _local_ repository. – Vyskol Jan 06 '17 at 19:24
Is there a way to highlight the pattern? – Martin Thoma Sep 04 '18 at 07:15
For those who might make the same mistake that I made: **This DOES work on Windows too!**, so don't look further down for Windows answers. :) – aderchox Jun 27 '22 at 22:09

score 243 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 30 '10 at 00:05

243

git log --oneline | grep PATTERN

answered Sep 30 '10 at 00:05

czchen

24

Won't this miss commits with the PATTERN in the commit message's lines other than the first? – tutuDajuju Jan 21 '14 at 12:26
20

requires grep to be available, i.e. this is a linux / git bash specific solution (unless you've installed grep on windows) – david.barkhuizen Oct 03 '14 at 07:05
7

If you're on windows, or some other env. without `grep`, combine both answers: `git log --oneline --grep=PATTERN` – user151841 Apr 30 '19 at 13:21
@tutuDajuju no, the line breaks are just replaced with spaces – bb1950328 Oct 21 '20 at 17:20

2 Answers2