GIT-REPLAY(1) Git Manual GIT-REPLAY(1)
NAME
git-replay - EXPERIMENTAL: Replay commits on a new base, works with
bare repos too
SYNOPSIS
(EXPERIMENTAL!) git replay ([--contained] --onto <newbase> | --advance <branch>) <revision-range>...
DESCRIPTION
Takes ranges of commits and replays them onto a new location. Leaves
the working tree and the index untouched, and updates no references.
The output of this command is meant to be used as input to git
update-ref --stdin, which would update the relevant branches (see the
OUTPUT section below).
THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. THE BEHAVIOR MAY CHANGE.
OPTIONS
--onto <newbase>
Starting point at which to create the new commits. May be any valid
commit, and not just an existing branch name.
When --onto is specified, the update-ref command(s) in the output
will update the branch(es) in the revision range to point at the
new commits, similar to the way how git rebase --update-refs
updates multiple branches in the affected range.
--advance <branch>
Starting point at which to create the new commits; must be a branch
name.
When --advance is specified, the update-ref command(s) in the
output will update the branch passed as an argument to --advance to
point at the new commits (in other words, this mimics a cherry-pick
operation).
<revision-range>
Range of commits to replay. More than one <revision-range> can be
passed, but in --advance <branch> mode, they should have a single
tip, so that it’s clear where <branch> should point to. See
"Specifying Ranges" in git-rev-parse(1) and the "Commit Limiting"
options below.
Commit Limiting
Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the
special notations explained in the description, additional commit
limiting may be applied.
Using more options generally further limits the output (e.g.
--since=<date1> limits to commits newer than <date1>, and using it with
--grep=<pattern> further limits to commits whose log message has a line
that matches <pattern>), unless otherwise noted.
Note that these are applied before commit ordering and formatting
options, such as --reverse.
-<number>, -n <number>, --max-count=<number>
Limit the output to <number> commits.
--skip=<number>
Skip <number> commits before starting to show the commit output.
--since=<date>, --after=<date>
Show commits more recent than <date>.
--since-as-filter=<date>
Show all commits more recent than <date>. This visits all commits
in the range, rather than stopping at the first commit which is
older than <date>.
--until=<date>, --before=<date>
Show commits older than <date>.
--author=<pattern>, --committer=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header lines
that match the <pattern> regular expression. With more than one
--author=<pattern>, commits whose author matches any of the
<pattern> are chosen (similarly for multiple
--committer=<pattern>).
--grep-reflog=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with reflog entries that match the
<pattern> regular expression. With more than one --grep-reflog,
commits whose reflog message matches any of the given patterns are
chosen. It is an error to use this option unless --walk-reflogs is
in use.
--grep=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with a log message that matches
the <pattern> regular expression. With more than one
--grep=<pattern>, commits whose message matches any of the
<pattern> are chosen (but see --all-match).
When --notes is in effect, the message from the notes is matched as
if it were part of the log message.
--all-match
Limit the commits output to ones that match all given --grep,
instead of ones that match at least one.
--invert-grep
Limit the commits output to ones with a log message that do not
match the <pattern> specified with --grep=<pattern>.
-i, --regexp-ignore-case
Match the regular expression limiting patterns without regard to
letter case.
--basic-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be basic regular expressions;
this is the default.
-E, --extended-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions
instead of the default basic regular expressions.
-F, --fixed-strings
Consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don’t interpret
pattern as a regular expression).
-P, --perl-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be Perl-compatible regular
expressions.
Support for these types of regular expressions is an optional
compile-time dependency. If Git wasn’t compiled with support for
them providing this option will cause it to die.
--remove-empty
Stop when a given path disappears from the tree.
--merges
Print only merge commits. This is exactly the same as
--min-parents=2.
--no-merges
Do not print commits with more than one parent. This is exactly the
same as --max-parents=1.
--min-parents=<number>, --max-parents=<number>, --no-min-parents,
--no-max-parents
Show only commits which have at least (or at most) that many parent
commits. In particular, --max-parents=1 is the same as --no-merges,
--min-parents=2 is the same as --merges. --max-parents=0 gives all
root commits and --min-parents=3 all octopus merges.
--no-min-parents and --no-max-parents reset these limits (to no
limit) again. Equivalent forms are --min-parents=0 (any commit has
0 or more parents) and --max-parents=-1 (negative numbers denote no
upper limit).
--first-parent
When finding commits to include, follow only the first parent
commit upon seeing a merge commit. This option can give a better
overview when viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch,
because merges into a topic branch tend to be only about adjusting
to updated upstream from time to time, and this option allows you
to ignore the individual commits brought in to your history by such
a merge.
--exclude-first-parent-only
When finding commits to exclude (with a ^), follow only the first
parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. This can be used to find
the set of changes in a topic branch from the point where it
diverged from the remote branch, given that arbitrary merges can be
valid topic branch changes.
--not
Reverses the meaning of the ^ prefix (or lack thereof) for all
following revision specifiers, up to the next --not. When used on
the command line before --stdin, the revisions passed through stdin
will not be affected by it. Conversely, when passed via standard
input, the revisions passed on the command line will not be
affected by it.
--all
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/, along with HEAD, are listed on
the command line as <commit>.
--branches[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/heads are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit branches to ones
matching given shell glob. If <pattern> lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the
end is implied.
--tags[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/tags are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit tags to ones
matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the
end is implied.
--remotes[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/remotes are listed on the
command line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit
remote-tracking branches to ones matching given shell glob. If
pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the end is implied.
--glob=<glob-pattern>
Pretend as if all the refs matching shell glob <glob-pattern> are
listed on the command line as <commit>. Leading refs/, is
automatically prepended if missing. If pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /*
at the end is implied.
--exclude=<glob-pattern>
Do not include refs matching <glob-pattern> that the next --all,
--branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob would otherwise consider.
Repetitions of this option accumulate exclusion patterns up to the
next --all, --branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob option (other
options or arguments do not clear accumulated patterns).
The patterns given should not begin with refs/heads, refs/tags, or
refs/remotes when applied to --branches, --tags, or --remotes,
respectively, and they must begin with refs/ when applied to --glob
or --all. If a trailing /* is intended, it must be given
explicitly.
--exclude-hidden=(fetch|receive|uploadpack)
Do not include refs that would be hidden by git-fetch,
git-receive-pack or git-upload-pack by consulting the appropriate
fetch.hideRefs, receive.hideRefs or uploadpack.hideRefs
configuration along with transfer.hideRefs (see git-config(1)).
This option affects the next pseudo-ref option --all or --glob and
is cleared after processing them.
--reflog
Pretend as if all objects mentioned by reflogs are listed on the
command line as <commit>.
--alternate-refs
Pretend as if all objects mentioned as ref tips of alternate
repositories were listed on the command line. An alternate
repository is any repository whose object directory is specified in
objects/info/alternates. The set of included objects may be
modified by core.alternateRefsCommand, etc. See git-config(1).
--single-worktree
By default, all working trees will be examined by the following
options when there are more than one (see git-worktree(1)): --all,
--reflog and --indexed-objects. This option forces them to examine
the current working tree only.
--ignore-missing
Upon seeing an invalid object name in the input, pretend as if the
bad input was not given.
--bisect
Pretend as if the bad bisection ref refs/bisect/bad was listed and
as if it was followed by --not and the good bisection refs
refs/bisect/good-* on the command line.
--stdin
In addition to getting arguments from the command line, read them
from standard input as well. This accepts commits and
pseudo-options like --all and --glob=. When a -- separator is seen,
the following input is treated as paths and used to limit the
result. Flags like --not which are read via standard input are only
respected for arguments passed in the same way and will not
influence any subsequent command line arguments.
--cherry-mark
Like --cherry-pick (see below) but mark equivalent commits with =
rather than omitting them, and inequivalent ones with +.
--cherry-pick
Omit any commit that introduces the same change as another commit
on the “other side” when the set of commits are limited with
symmetric difference.
For example, if you have two branches, A and B, a usual way to list
all commits on only one side of them is with --left-right (see the
example below in the description of the --left-right option).
However, it shows the commits that were cherry-picked from the
other branch (for example, “3rd on b” may be cherry-picked from
branch A). With this option, such pairs of commits are excluded
from the output.
--left-only, --right-only
List only commits on the respective side of a symmetric difference,
i.e. only those which would be marked < resp. > by --left-right.
For example, --cherry-pick --right-only A...B omits those commits
from B which are in A or are patch-equivalent to a commit in A. In
other words, this lists the + commits from git cherry A B. More
precisely, --cherry-pick --right-only --no-merges gives the exact
list.
--cherry
A synonym for --right-only --cherry-mark --no-merges; useful to
limit the output to the commits on our side and mark those that
have been applied to the other side of a forked history with git
log --cherry upstream...mybranch, similar to git cherry upstream
mybranch.
-g, --walk-reflogs
Instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk reflog entries
from the most recent one to older ones. When this option is used
you cannot specify commits to exclude (that is, ^<commit>,
<commit1>..<commit2>, and <commit1>...<commit2> notations cannot be
used).
With --pretty format other than oneline and reference (for obvious
reasons), this causes the output to have two extra lines of
information taken from the reflog. The reflog designator in the
output may be shown as ref@{<Nth>} (where <Nth> is the
reverse-chronological index in the reflog) or as ref@{<timestamp>}
(with the <timestamp> for that entry), depending on a few rules:
1. If the starting point is specified as ref@{<Nth>}, show the
index format.
2. If the starting point was specified as ref@{now}, show the
timestamp format.
3. If neither was used, but --date was given on the command line,
show the timestamp in the format requested by --date.
4. Otherwise, show the index format.
Under --pretty=oneline, the commit message is prefixed with this
information on the same line. This option cannot be combined with
--reverse. See also git-reflog(1).
Under --pretty=reference, this information will not be shown at
all.
--merge
Show commits touching conflicted paths in the range HEAD...<other>,
where <other> is the first existing pseudoref in MERGE_HEAD,
CHERRY_PICK_HEAD, REVERT_HEAD or REBASE_HEAD. Only works when the
index has unmerged entries. This option can be used to show
relevant commits when resolving conflicts from a 3-way merge.
--boundary
Output excluded boundary commits. Boundary commits are prefixed
with -.
History Simplification
Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example
the commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of
History Simplification, one part is selecting the commits and the other
is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the
history.
The following options select the commits to be shown:
<paths>
Commits modifying the given <paths> are selected.
--simplify-by-decoration
Commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected.
Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history.
The following options affect the way the simplification is performed:
Default mode
Simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the final
state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side branches if
the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches with the same
content)
--show-pulls
Include all commits from the default mode, but also any merge
commits that are not TREESAME to the first parent but are TREESAME
to a later parent. This mode is helpful for showing the merge
commits that "first introduced" a change to a branch.
--full-history
Same as the default mode, but does not prune some history.
--dense
Only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a meaningful
history.
--sparse
All commits in the simplified history are shown.
--simplify-merges
Additional option to --full-history to remove some needless merges
from the resulting history, as there are no selected commits
contributing to this merge.
--ancestry-path[=<commit>]
When given a range of commits to display (e.g.
<commit1>..<commit2> or <commit2> ^<commit1>), and a commit
<commit> in that range, only display commits in that range that are
ancestors of <commit>, descendants of <commit>, or <commit> itself.
If no commit is specified, use <commit1> (the excluded part of the
range) as <commit>. Can be passed multiple times; if so, a commit
is included if it is any of the commits given or if it is an
ancestor or descendant of one of them.
A more detailed explanation follows.
Suppose you specified foo as the <paths>. We shall call commits that
modify foo !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff filtered for
foo, they look different and equal, respectively.)
In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to
illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume
that you are filtering for a file foo in this commit graph:
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / / /
I B C D E Y
\ / / / / /
`-------------' X
The horizontal line of history A---Q is taken to be the first parent of
each merge. The commits are:
• I is the initial commit, in which foo exists with contents asdf,
and a file quux exists with contents quux. Initial commits are
compared to an empty tree, so I is !TREESAME.
• In A, foo contains just foo.
• B contains the same change as A. Its merge M is trivial and hence
TREESAME to all parents.
• C does not change foo, but its merge N changes it to foobar, so it
is not TREESAME to any parent.
• D sets foo to baz. Its merge O combines the strings from N and D to
foobarbaz; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent.
• E changes quux to xyzzy, and its merge P combines the strings to
quux xyzzy. P is TREESAME to O, but not to E.
• X is an independent root commit that added a new file side, and Y
modified it. Y is TREESAME to X. Its merge Q added side to P, and
Q is TREESAME to P, but not to Y.
rev-list walks backwards through history, including or excluding
commits based on whether --full-history and/or parent rewriting (via
--parents or --children) are used. The following settings are
available.
Default mode
Commits are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent (though
this can be changed, see --sparse below). If the commit was a
merge, and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow only that parent.
(Even if there are several TREESAME parents, follow only one of
them.) Otherwise, follow all parents.
This results in:
.-A---N---O
/ / /
I---------D
Note how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is
available, removed B from consideration entirely. C was considered
via N, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an empty tree,
so I is !TREESAME.
Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that
does not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have
shown the parent lines.
--full-history without parent rewriting
This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow all
parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. Even if
more than one side of the merge has commits that are included, this
does not imply that the merge itself is! In the example, we get
I A B N D O P Q
M was excluded because it is TREESAME to both parents. E, C and B
were all walked, but only B was !TREESAME, so the others do not
appear.
Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to
talk about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so
we show them disconnected.
--full-history with parent rewriting
Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME (though
this can be changed, see --sparse below).
Merges are always included. However, their parent list is
rewritten: Along each parent, prune away commits that are not
included themselves. This results in
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / /
I B / D /
\ / / / /
`-------------'
Compare to --full-history without rewriting above. Note that E was
pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was
rewritten to contain E's parent I. The same happened for C and N,
and X, Y and Q.
In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME
affects inclusion:
--dense
Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME to
any parent.
--sparse
All commits that are walked are included.
Note that without --full-history, this still simplifies merges: if
one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the
other sides of the merge are never walked.
--simplify-merges
First, build a history graph in the same way that --full-history
with parent rewriting does (see above).
Then simplify each commit C to its replacement C' in the final
history according to the following rules:
• Set C' to C.
• Replace each parent P of C' with its simplification P'. In the
process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents or
that are root commits TREESAME to an empty tree, and remove
duplicates, but take care to never drop all parents that we are
TREESAME to.
• If after this parent rewriting, C' is a root or merge commit
(has zero or >1 parents), a boundary commit, or !TREESAME, it
remains. Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent.
The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to
--full-history with parent rewriting. The example turns into:
.-A---M---N---O
/ / /
I B D
\ / /
`---------'
Note the major differences in N, P, and Q over --full-history:
• N's parent list had I removed, because it is an ancestor of the
other parent M. Still, N remained because it is !TREESAME.
• P's parent list similarly had I removed. P was then removed
completely, because it had one parent and is TREESAME.
• Q's parent list had Y simplified to X. X was then removed,
because it was a TREESAME root. Q was then removed completely,
because it had one parent and is TREESAME.
There is another simplification mode available:
--ancestry-path[=<commit>]
Limit the displayed commits to those which are an ancestor of
<commit>, or which are a descendant of <commit>, or are <commit>
itself.
As an example use case, consider the following commit history:
D---E-------F
/ \ \
B---C---G---H---I---J
/ \
A-------K---------------L--M
A regular D..M computes the set of commits that are ancestors of M,
but excludes the ones that are ancestors of D. This is useful to
see what happened to the history leading to M since D, in the sense
that "what does M have that did not exist in D". The result in this
example would be all the commits, except A and B (and D itself, of
course).
When we want to find out what commits in M are contaminated with
the bug introduced by D and need fixing, however, we might want to
view only the subset of D..M that are actually descendants of D,
i.e. excluding C and K. This is exactly what the --ancestry-path
option does. Applied to the D..M range, it results in:
E-------F
\ \
G---H---I---J
\
L--M
We can also use --ancestry-path=D instead of --ancestry-path which
means the same thing when applied to the D..M range but is just
more explicit.
If we instead are interested in a given topic within this range,
and all commits affected by that topic, we may only want to view
the subset of D..M which contain that topic in their ancestry path.
So, using --ancestry-path=H D..M for example would result in:
E
\
C---G---H---I---J
\
L--M
Whereas --ancestry-path=K D..M would result in
K---------------L--M
Before discussing another option, --show-pulls, we need to create a new
example history.
A common problem users face when looking at simplified history is that
a commit they know changed a file somehow does not appear in the file’s
simplified history. Let’s demonstrate a new example and show how
options such as --full-history and --simplify-merges works in that
case:
.-A---M-----C--N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`-Z' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `---Y--'
For this example, suppose I created file.txt which was modified by A,
B, and X in different ways. The single-parent commits C, Z, and Y do
not change file.txt. The merge commit M was created by resolving the
merge conflict to include both changes from A and B and hence is not
TREESAME to either. The merge commit R, however, was created by
ignoring the contents of file.txt at M and taking only the contents of
file.txt at X. Hence, R is TREESAME to X but not M. Finally, the
natural merge resolution to create N is to take the contents of
file.txt at R, so N is TREESAME to R but not C. The merge commits O and
P are TREESAME to their first parents, but not to their second parents,
Z and Y respectively.
When using the default mode, N and R both have a TREESAME parent, so
those edges are walked and the others are ignored. The resulting
history graph is:
I---X
When using --full-history, Git walks every edge. This will discover the
commits A and B and the merge M, but also will reveal the merge commits
O and P. With parent rewriting, the resulting graph is:
.-A---M--------N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`--' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `------'
Here, the merge commits O and P contribute extra noise, as they did not
actually contribute a change to file.txt. They only merged a topic that
was based on an older version of file.txt. This is a common issue in
repositories using a workflow where many contributors work in parallel
and merge their topic branches along a single trunk: many unrelated
merges appear in the --full-history results.
When using the --simplify-merges option, the commits O and P disappear
from the results. This is because the rewritten second parents of O and
P are reachable from their first parents. Those edges are removed and
then the commits look like single-parent commits that are TREESAME to
their parent. This also happens to the commit N, resulting in a history
view as follows:
.-A---M--.
/ / \
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'
In this view, we see all of the important single-parent changes from A,
B, and X. We also see the carefully-resolved merge M and the
not-so-carefully-resolved merge R. This is usually enough information
to determine why the commits A and B "disappeared" from history in the
default view. However, there are a few issues with this approach.
The first issue is performance. Unlike any previous option, the
--simplify-merges option requires walking the entire commit history
before returning a single result. This can make the option difficult to
use for very large repositories.
The second issue is one of auditing. When many contributors are working
on the same repository, it is important which merge commits introduced
a change into an important branch. The problematic merge R above is not
likely to be the merge commit that was used to merge into an important
branch. Instead, the merge N was used to merge R and X into the
important branch. This commit may have information about why the change
X came to override the changes from A and B in its commit message.
--show-pulls
In addition to the commits shown in the default history, show each
merge commit that is not TREESAME to its first parent but is
TREESAME to a later parent.
When a merge commit is included by --show-pulls, the merge is
treated as if it "pulled" the change from another branch. When
using --show-pulls on this example (and no other options) the
resulting graph is:
I---X---R---N
Here, the merge commits R and N are included because they pulled
the commits X and R into the base branch, respectively. These
merges are the reason the commits A and B do not appear in the
default history.
When --show-pulls is paired with --simplify-merges, the graph
includes all of the necessary information:
.-A---M--. N
/ / \ /
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'
Notice that since M is reachable from R, the edge from N to M was
simplified away. However, N still appears in the history as an
important commit because it "pulled" the change R into the main
branch.
The --simplify-by-decoration option allows you to view only the big
picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits that are
not referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME (in other
words, kept after history simplification rules described above) if (1)
they are referenced by tags, or (2) they change the contents of the
paths given on the command line. All other commits are marked as
TREESAME (subject to be simplified away).
Commit Ordering
By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order.
--date-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise
show commits in the commit timestamp order.
--author-date-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise
show commits in the author timestamp order.
--topo-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, and avoid
showing commits on multiple lines of history intermixed.
For example, in a commit history like this:
---1----2----4----7
\ \
3----5----6----8---
where the numbers denote the order of commit timestamps, git
rev-list and friends with --date-order show the commits in the
timestamp order: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.
With --topo-order, they would show 8 6 5 3 7 4 2 1 (or 8 7 4 2 6 5
3 1); some older commits are shown before newer ones in order to
avoid showing the commits from two parallel development track mixed
together.
--reverse
Output the commits chosen to be shown (see Commit Limiting section
above) in reverse order. Cannot be combined with --walk-reflogs.
Object Traversal
These options are mostly targeted for packing of Git repositories.
--no-walk[=(sorted|unsorted)]
Only show the given commits, but do not traverse their ancestors.
This has no effect if a range is specified. If the argument
unsorted is given, the commits are shown in the order they were
given on the command line. Otherwise (if sorted or no argument was
given), the commits are shown in reverse chronological order by
commit time. Cannot be combined with --graph.
--do-walk
Overrides a previous --no-walk.
Commit Formatting
--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,
reference, email, raw, format:<string> and tformat:<string>. When
<format> is none of the above, and has %<placeholder> in it, it
acts as if --pretty=tformat:<format> were given.
See the "PRETTY FORMATS" section for some additional details for
each format. When =<format> part is omitted, it 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 a prefix that names the object uniquely. --abbrev=<n> (which
also modifies diff output, if it is displayed) option can be used
to specify the minimum length of the prefix.
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, either explicit or implied by other options such
as --oneline. It also overrides the log.abbrevCommit variable.
--oneline
This is a shorthand for --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit used
together.
--encoding=<encoding>
Commit objects record the character 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. Note that if an object claims to be encoded in X and we are
outputting in X, we will output the object verbatim; this means
that invalid sequences in the original commit may be copied to the
output. Likewise, if iconv(3) fails to convert the commit, we will
quietly output the original object verbatim.
--expand-tabs=<n>, --expand-tabs, --no-expand-tabs
Perform a tab expansion (replace each tab with enough spaces to
fill to the next display column that is a multiple of <n>) in the
log message before showing it in the output. --expand-tabs is a
short-hand for --expand-tabs=8, and --no-expand-tabs is a
short-hand for --expand-tabs=0, which disables tab expansion.
By default, tabs are expanded in pretty formats that indent the log
message by 4 spaces (i.e. medium, which is the default, full, and
fuller).
--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, or --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, use the ref to find the notes to
display. The ref can specify the full refname when it begins with
refs/notes/; when it begins with notes/, refs/ and otherwise
refs/notes/ is prefixed to form the full name of the ref.
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-by-default
Show the default notes unless options for displaying specific notes
are given.
--show-notes[=<ref>], --standard-notes, --no-standard-notes
These options are deprecated. Use the above --notes/--no-notes
options instead.
--show-signature
Check the validity of a signed commit object by passing the
signature to gpg --verify and show the output.
--relative-date
Synonym for --date=relative.
--date=<format>
Only takes effect for dates shown in human-readable format, such as
when using --pretty. log.date config variable sets a default value
for the log command’s --date option. By default, dates are shown in
the original time zone (either committer’s or author’s). If -local
is appended to the format (e.g., iso-local), the user’s local time
zone is used instead.
--date=relative shows dates relative to the current time, e.g. “2
hours ago”. The -local option has no effect for --date=relative.
--date=local is an alias for --date=default-local.
--date=iso (or --date=iso8601) shows timestamps in a ISO 8601-like
format. The differences to the strict ISO 8601 format are:
• a space instead of the T date/time delimiter
• a space between time and time zone
• no colon between hours and minutes of the time zone
--date=iso-strict (or --date=iso8601-strict) shows timestamps in
strict ISO 8601 format.
--date=rfc (or --date=rfc2822) shows timestamps in RFC 2822 format,
often found in email messages.
--date=short shows only the date, but not the time, in YYYY-MM-DD
format.
--date=raw shows the date as seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01
00:00:00 UTC), followed by a space, and then the timezone as an
offset from UTC (a + or - with four digits; the first two are
hours, and the second two are minutes). I.e., as if the timestamp
were formatted with strftime("%s %z")). Note that the -local option
does not affect the seconds-since-epoch value (which is always
measured in UTC), but does switch the accompanying timezone value.
--date=human shows the timezone if the timezone does not match the
current time-zone, and doesn’t print the whole date if that matches
(ie skip printing year for dates that are "this year", but also
skip the whole date itself if it’s in the last few days and we can
just say what weekday it was). For older dates the hour and minute
is also omitted.
--date=unix shows the date as a Unix epoch timestamp (seconds since
1970). As with --raw, this is always in UTC and therefore -local
has no effect.
--date=format:<format> feeds the <format> to your system strftime,
except for %s, %z, and %Z, which are handled internally. Use
--date=format:%c to show the date in your system locale’s preferred
format. See the strftime(3) manual for a complete list of format
placeholders. When using -local, the correct syntax is
--date=format-local:<format>.
--date=default is the default format, and is based on ctime(3)
output. It shows a single line with three-letter day of the week,
three-letter month, day-of-month, hour-minute-seconds in "HH:MM:SS"
format, followed by 4-digit year, plus timezone information, unless
the local time zone is used, e.g. Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 +0000.
--parents
Print also the parents of the commit (in the form "commit
parent..."). Also enables parent rewriting, see History
Simplification above.
--children
Print also the children of the commit (in the form "commit
child..."). Also enables parent rewriting, see History
Simplification above.
--left-right
Mark which side of a symmetric difference a commit is reachable
from. Commits from the left side are prefixed with < and those from
the right with >. If combined with --boundary, those commits are
prefixed with -.
For example, if you have this topology:
y---b---b branch B
/ \ /
/ .
/ / \
o---x---a---a branch A
you would get an output like this:
$ git rev-list --left-right --boundary --pretty=oneline A...B
>bbbbbbb... 3rd on b
>bbbbbbb... 2nd on b
<aaaaaaa... 3rd on a
<aaaaaaa... 2nd on a
-yyyyyyy... 1st on b
-xxxxxxx... 1st on a
--graph
Draw a text-based graphical representation of the commit history on
the left hand side of the output. This may cause extra lines to be
printed in between commits, in order for the graph history to be
drawn properly. Cannot be combined with --no-walk.
This enables parent rewriting, see History Simplification above.
This implies the --topo-order option by default, but the
--date-order option may also be specified.
--show-linear-break[=<barrier>]
When --graph is not used, all history branches are flattened which
can make it hard to see that the two consecutive commits do not
belong to a linear branch. This option puts a barrier in between
them in that case. If <barrier> is specified, it is the string that
will be shown instead of the default one.
OUTPUT
When there are no conflicts, the output of this command is usable as
input to git update-ref --stdin. It is of the form:
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch3 ${NEW_branch3_HASH} ${OLD_branch3_HASH}
where the number of refs updated depends on the arguments passed and
the shape of the history being replayed. When using --advance, the
number of refs updated is always one, but for --onto, it can be one or
more (rebasing multiple branches simultaneously is supported).
EXIT STATUS
For a successful, non-conflicted replay, the exit status is 0. When the
replay has conflicts, the exit status is 1. If the replay is not able
to complete (or start) due to some kind of error, the exit status is
something other than 0 or 1.
EXAMPLES
To simply rebase mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --onto target origin/main..mybranch
update refs/heads/mybranch ${NEW_mybranch_HASH} ${OLD_mybranch_HASH}
To cherry-pick the commits from mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --advance target origin/main..mybranch
update refs/heads/target ${NEW_target_HASH} ${OLD_target_HASH}
Note that the first two examples replay the exact same commits and on
top of the exact same new base, they only differ in that the first
provides instructions to make mybranch point at the new commits and the
second provides instructions to make target point at them.
What if you have a stack of branches, one depending upon another, and
you’d really like to rebase the whole set?
$ git replay --contained --onto origin/main origin/main..tipbranch
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/tipbranch ${NEW_tipbranch_HASH} ${OLD_tipbranch_HASH}
When calling git replay, one does not need to specify a range of
commits to replay using the syntax A..B; any range expression will do:
$ git replay --onto origin/main ^base branch1 branch2 branch3
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch3 ${NEW_branch3_HASH} ${OLD_branch3_HASH}
This will simultaneously rebase branch1, branch2, and branch3, all
commits they have since base, playing them on top of origin/main. These
three branches may have commits on top of base that they have in
common, but that does not need to be the case.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.51.0 2025-08-17 GIT-REPLAY(1)
git replay \- EXPERIMENTAL: Replay commits on a new base, works with bare repos too