show commits since branch creation

Question

Is there a way to see with git log or some other command only the commits that were added after branch creation?

usage: git log [<options>] [<since>..<until>] [[--] <path>...]
   or: git show [options] <object>...

    --quiet               suppress diff output
    --source              show source
    --decorate[=...]      decorate options

Related: [How to get the changes on a branch in git](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/53569/how-to-get-the-changes-on-a-branch-in-git) — John Bartholomew, Mar 15 '12 at 18:09
related: https://stackoverflow.com/q/7251477/52074 , https://stackoverflow.com/q/462974/52074 — Trevor Boyd Smith, Apr 03 '19 at 12:20

Alan Thompson · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-31T20:15:15.410

Full documentation is here: https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitrevisions.html

Suppose you have a repo that looks like this:

base  -  A  -  B  -  C  -  D   (master)
                \
                 \-  X  -  Y  -  Z   (myBranch)

Verify the repo status:

> git checkout master
Already on 'master'
> git status ; git log --oneline
On branch master
nothing to commit, working directory clean
d9addce D
110a9ab C
5f3f8db B
0f26e69 A
e764ffa base

and for myBranch:

> git checkout myBranch
> git status ; git log --oneline
On branch myBranch
nothing to commit, working directory clean
3bc0d40 Z
917ac8d Y
3e65f72 X
5f3f8db B
0f26e69 A
e764ffa base

Suppose you are on myBranch, and you want to see only changes SINCE branching from master. Use the two-dot version:

> git log --oneline master..myBranch
3bc0d40 Z
917ac8d Y
3e65f72 X

The three-dot version gives all changes from the tip of master to the tip of myBranch. However, note that the common commit B is not included:

> git log --oneline master...myBranch
d9addce D
110a9ab C
3bc0d40 Z
917ac8d Y
3e65f72 X

PLEASE NOTE: git log and git diff BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY! The behavior is not exactly opposite, but almost:

> git diff master..myBranch
diff --git a/rev.txt b/rev.txt
index 1784810..e900b1c 100644
--- a/rev.txt
+++ b/rev.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-D
+Z

> git diff master...myBranch
diff --git a/rev.txt b/rev.txt
index 223b783..e900b1c 100644
--- a/rev.txt
+++ b/rev.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-B
+Z

So, the two-dot version shows the diff from tip of master (i.e. D) to tip of myBranch (Z). The three-dot version shows the difference from the base of myBranch (i.e. B) to the tip of myBranch (Z).

If you would do `git log --oneline myBranch..master`, would that give you `D` and `C`? — MiniGod, Dec 01 '15 at 10:59
upvote for describing the difference between .. and ... and providing examples. Awesome answer! — Gui Lima, Jan 20 '16 at 17:18
Thanks for pointing out log and diff behave differently (almost oppositely). Why would that be? — onlyanegg, May 26 '20 at 18:07

score 70 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 09 '22 at 00:28

70

You want the double dot notation:

git log master..<your_branch_name>

I did a test with the following repo structure:

a - - c - e - - g - i   master
  \ b - d / \ f - h     test

I then tried git log master..test:

f - h

And then git log master...test:

  - g - i
  f - h

So double dot shows the commits in test but not in master (^master temp) and triple dot shows commits in master AND test but not in both.

The other excellent answer in this question got it right first and has a better explanation (https://stackoverflow.com/a/24769534/1185838); it should probably be marked as the answer instead of mine. You can also reference this answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/463027/1185838) which helped me better understand the difference between double dot and triple dot notation.

edited Mar 09 '22 at 00:28

temporary_user_name

35,956
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answered Jan 03 '13 at 22:36

Matt Meng

830
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1

`git log master...` did NOT work for me, only `git log master..` worked. Notice the two dots instead of three – NecipAllef Feb 08 '18 at 14:15
Glad it worked for you. Double for is obviously correct syntax. But be careful, the dots DO matter. See Alan Thompson's answer for a detailed explanation of the difference between the double and triple dot notation. – Matt Meng Feb 09 '18 at 17:56
This gives me odd results... While `master..mybranch` gives 1 (and there is indeed just one commit since branch creation), your version with three dots gives me 35. Where that 35 comes from is unclear. Looks like it counts all commits that happened on `master` since the branch was created. Or maybe both on the branch and on master... – Alexander Amelkin Aug 30 '18 at 14:25
If this doesn't work for you, consider whether maybe you meant `origin/master` instead of the local one (if that is the case, as it was for me, you can simply do `origin/master..mybranch`) – Torque Mar 21 '22 at 11:53

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 26 '15 at 02:09

16

If you're on the branch that you created:

git log master..

answered Nov 26 '15 at 02:09

Shaun Luttin

133,272
81
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467

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 28 '13 at 22:08

5

Yes it's possible to compare your "new" branch with the master branch (commonly named : "master"):

git log master..<your_branch_name>

Of course, replace <your_branch_name>.

edited Aug 28 '13 at 22:08

hayesgm

8,678
1
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answered Mar 15 '12 at 18:11

Sandro Munda

39,921
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6

This only shows the commits since you last pulled from master, or vise versa, which is not the same as showing the commits since the branch was created. – spiffytech Nov 20 '12 at 20:48

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 17 '18 at 20:31

I could be wrong but I don't think any of the answers are exactly was being asked for in the OP so I wanted to add a new answer. I believe that this is the exact same question I had since in other source control systems this is very easy to do.

I have the following in MASTER:

'develop' | --> 'GP603'

In ORIGIN (my local system) I have:

'GP603' [CLONED from the remote/GP603 branch]

I then performed 2 different commits. First commit change File X. Second commit change File X and File Y. Some day later I wanted to just validate my assumption of the state of the local branch ORIGIN/GP603. This is what I did to validate that there were only he 2 commits I remembers doing (which in reality were the only 2 commits on the branch)

$ git log origin/GP.603...

(Commit 2) commit b0ed4b95a14bb1c4438c8b48a31db7a0e9f5c940 (HEAD -> GP.603) Author: xxxxxxx Date: Wed xxxxx -0400

1. Fixed defect where the format of the file names and paths were being added to HashTable in such a way that they would never be matched in any comparison.  This was an
defect causing older failed files to never be moved to the correct directory (WindowsServiceApplication.cs)

2. Removing worthless and contextless message as it does nothing but clog the log with garbage making it harder to read (DinoutFileHandler.cs)

(Commit 1) commit 2c4541ca73eacd4b2e20d89f018d2e3f70332e7e Author: xxxxxxx Date: Tue Oct xxxxx -0400

In ProcessFile() function need to perform a .ToLower() on the file path string when adding it o the failedFiles collection.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 13 '20 at 15:11

This command worked nicely for me. I was interesting in seeing only the names of the files that changed in the delta of commits between a beginning and an ending ref,

 git log --no-merges --pretty=oneline --name-only <begin ref>..<end ref>

which gives output like this,

<commit hash> <commit subject line>
foo.txtr
bar.txt

score -1 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 15 '20 at 12:47

I get often into the mode of oh, dear God, what have I done. Specifically, the haunting fear regards the latest changes in the current branch. It's nice to see the blame game of commits, which I do as follows. (Assuming you're in the current branch of interest and have branched it out from dev.)

git log --oneline dev..

It gives me the list of commits I've done to track back to the place where mayhem, sodom and gomorra aren't the reality. Also, it helps if you commit obsessively like a ADHD monkey on LSD. Once I've got my bearings list, I can narrow it down and analyse as documented in this article - there's a section on limiting the output at the bottom.

show commits since branch creation

7 Answers7

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