[Practical Git] Filter commit history with git log arguments

In the last lesson, we learned how to format the git log output; in this lesson we will learn how to filter down to a specific set of commits. By default, git log shows every commit in a repo. We will walk through using a bunch of options to filter our git log commits to a more meaningful set (-n, --after, --before, --author, --grep, -S, -G, --no-merges, {ref}..{ref}, {files}). We will also show how all of the formatting and filtering options can be composed together to query exactly what you are looking for in your commit history.

Show lasat N commit:

git log -3 // show last three commit

Show commits from a center time:

git log --after="yesterday" // Show the commit between yesterday and today

git log --after="10 minutes ago"
git log --after="2 weeks ago"
git log --after="3/15/16" // Match 15, 2016

Combine with --before:

git log --after="3/15/16" --before="yesterday"

The same as:

git log --since="3/15/16" --until="yesterday"

Filter by author:

git log --author="Tavor"

Filter by the commit message:

git log --grep="copyright"

Filter by the code using string:

git log -S"Math.random" -p // get all the commit which has Math.random changes in the code, and use -p option to see the code

Filter by the code using Regex:

git log -p -GMath|random // Using 'G' without quotes and follow with regex math or random

Ingore the case:

git log -i --author="Jane" // search both for "Jane" and "jane"

git log --author="Jane" // search only for "Jane"

Filter out merges commit:

git log --no-merges

See the commits between two branch:

git log master..cool-feature

Search by files:

git log LIENCE.md README.md // search for lience and readme files

Example:

git log -3 README.md -p -i --author="Tavor" // Want to see last 3 change on README.md file by author Tavor, ignor the case, and show the code

git log -S"Math" --after="2 months ago" --oneline --stat