CODEWITHSUNDEEP
gitversion-controlmergegit-log
Joseph Mansfield
Joseph Mansfield

Reputation: 110658

Listing full commit history of a particular file

I have the following recent commit history:

*   cb14273 Merge 'test-branch' into 'master'
|\  
| * a022556 Rename 'bar' to 'baz'
| * 6489f33 Merge 'pull-request-bar-branch' into 'test-branch'
| |\  
| | * fdc3e37 Added 'bar' file (pull-request-bar-branch)
| * | 3e87596 Rename 'foo' file to 'bar'
| * | 259c0fe Merge 'pull-request-foo-branch' into 'test-branch'
| |\ \  
|/ / /
| * | 09e7a1b Added 'foo' file (pull-request-foo-branch)
| | |

It illustrates the history of how the baz file was created. It started as foo, which was added by a pull request. It was then renamed to bar. Another pull request also introduced a bar file and this was merged into the existing bar. It was then renamed to baz and merged into the master branch.

I'm trying to list the full history of the baz file (which is every commit in the above tree) so I can programmatically get the file's contributors. Here are my attempts:

$ git log --oneline -- baz
a022556 Rename 'bar' to 'baz'

Doesn't get past the file name, so I need --follow.

$ git log --follow --oneline -- baz
a022556 Rename 'bar' to 'baz'
3e87596 Rename 'foo' file to 'bar'
09e7a1b Added 'foo' file (pull-request-foo-branch)

Gets past the file rename, but only follows the parents starting at foo, and doesn't include the merge of changes into bar. In particular, commit fdc3e37 is missing, whose own version of bar was merged in. Neither --all or --full-history change anything.

$ git log --follow --merges --oneline -- baz

Adding --merges seems to give no results at all.

This is what I'm expecting (the order of commits and the merge commits on't really matter):

$ git log [some options] -- baz
cb14273 Merge 'test-branch' into 'master'
a022556 Rename 'bar' to 'baz'
6489f33 Merge 'pull-request-bar-branch' into 'test-branch'
fdc3e37 Added 'bar' file (pull-request-bar-branch)
3e87596 Rename 'foo' file to 'bar'
259c0fe Merge 'pull-request-foo-branch' into 'test-branch'
09e7a1b Added 'foo' file (pull-request-foo-branch)

Is there any way to get this?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 83

Answers (1)

Joseph Mansfield
Joseph Mansfield

Reputation: 110658

It appears to be solved by using the --simplify-merges option:

$ git log --follow --simplify-merges --oneline -- baz
a022556 Rename 'bar' to 'baz'
fdc3e37 Added 'bar' file (pull-request-bar-branch)
3e87596 Rename 'foo' file to 'bar'
09e7a1b Added 'foo' file (pull-request-foo-branch)

This doesn't include the merges, but that's okay for my particular case.

Although the man pages don't give me any idea how this works:

   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)

   --full-history
       Same as the default mode, but does not prune some history.

   --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.

I can't see why that would affect the result here.

Upvotes: 1

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