Last Updated: April 30, 2024
·
675.8K
· filipekiss

A better git log

So, are you tired of this old and bored git log screen?

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How about this one, instead?

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It's simple. Just type in:

git log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit

I guess that's a bit too long, eh? Let's just make an alias. Copy and paste the line below on your terminal:

git config --global alias.lg "log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit"

And every time you need to see your log, just type in

git lg

Or, if you want to see the lines that changed

git lg -p

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Hope you like it :)

PS: It seems that there's no way to view larger images, so I've linked bigger versions of them on the tip. Just click the image. Thanks to @basus(http://www.twitter.com/basus) for the note

Update: As some people were reporting, the git lg -p command wasn't working. As pointed out by the user universal_property at reddit, removing the -- at the end made it work.

Update 2 (by @cervedin): I would suggest changing %cr to %ar as commit dates change when rebasing

50 Responses
Add your response

This doesn't work for individual files

over 1 year ago ·

@askjuise Thank. I've fixed. :)

over 1 year ago ·

You guys can try this one :

git config --global alias.lg "log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative"

this will:
-one commit per line

-show graph of commits

-abbreviated commit IDs

-dates relative to now

-show commit references (like git log --decorate)

-lots of colour

-show author of the commit

over 1 year ago ·

Cool Filipe! Thanks!

over 1 year ago ·

Great Filipe! Thanks :)

over 1 year ago ·

Very nice, thanks man

over 1 year ago ·

thats amazing. thanks!

over 1 year ago ·

Thanks man! For copy-pasting change-logs, here's an ascii friendly version:

git log --graph --pretty=format:'%h -%d %s (%cr) <%an>' --abbrev-commit

...and the alias:

git config --global alias.lg-ascii "log --graph --pretty=format:'%h -%d %s (%cr) <%an>' --abbrev-commit"
over 1 year ago ·

[alias]
lg = !tig

google "tig" for more info

over 1 year ago ·

This is great, thanks!

Rather than a git alias, I opted for a bash alias by adding this line to my .bash_profile:
alias gitlog="git log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit"

Now I have gitlog and gitlog -p.
Thanks again!

over 1 year ago ·
over 1 year ago ·

Try this
git log --oneline --abbrev-commit --all --graph --decorate --color

It will give you one line commits, plus branching.

over 1 year ago ·

FYI, %h is for abbreviated commit hash, making --abbrev-commit redundant.

over 1 year ago ·

Call me old fashioned. I use the alias glo mapped to

git log --decorate --oneline --graph and that works well for me.

Or, if I'm feeling like I need something a bit different, glg , which is mapped to

git log --decorate --graph --abbrev-commit --date=relative

https://github.com/kevinSuttle/dotfiles/blob/master/git/aliases.zsh#L11

over 1 year ago ·

This is great! Thanks :D

over 1 year ago ·

I like this one, that shows the branch graph on the left:

history = log --graph --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h%C(cyan)%d%Creset %s %C(white)- %an, %ar%Creset'
stash-list = stash list --pretty=format:'%Cblue%gd%Cred: %C(yellow)%s'q

Looks like: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/1b468c02-8e39-499f-afd8-2fd3a099896c/88b8c39a380bc90b5809b2e9f4f069cc/deep/0/Screenshot%206/7/13%202:56%20PM.png

over 1 year ago ·

@dshafik Mine also shows the graph :) It just happened to be a flat-line for the screenshots I've chose :P

over 1 year ago ·

Love it!

over 1 year ago ·

scm_breeze on github does something similar automatically plus a bunch of other nice aliases

over 1 year ago ·

There is no need for --abbrev-commit.

Thanks for the tip though, I trimmed mine down to:

git log --format='%Cred%h%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(blue)<%an>%Creset%C(yellow)%d%Creset' --no-merges
over 1 year ago ·

This is great, thanks for sharing !

over 1 year ago ·

Great stuff.

over 1 year ago ·

I keep it simple with
git log --oneline --decorate --graph

This shows each commit on one line, decorates each line with any information about branches and repos and displays a graph where commits have branched or merged.

If you want to really personalise you git log with specific colours, here is an article to explain the syntax of all that in detail:
http://blog.jr0cket.co.uk/2013/06/designing-your-own-commit-graph-with-git.html

Thanks
John

over 1 year ago ·

In my gists NOW!

over 1 year ago ·

Eu te amo! haha

over 1 year ago ·

I'd prefer to set the default to --graph --decorate, rather than cook up a new alias. :/

over 1 year ago ·

Nice! Any tips on porting this to Fish? I'm quite new to the command line stuff, and I can't find any reference to %C, string interpolation or command line styling for Fish shell. /lost

update: Okay, so the reason why I was getting an error was, I was putting white space between the '='. My bad! Carry along.

over 1 year ago ·

https://github.com/FredrikNoren/ungit

is kinda awesome

npm install -g ungit && ungit

if only I could post an image... oops

over 1 year ago ·

The git plugin of oh-my-zsh comes with tons of aliases, including log aliases.

  • alias glgg='git log --graph --max-count=10'
  • alias glgga='git log --graph --decorate --all'
  • alias glo='git log --oneline --decorate --color'
  • alias glog='git log --oneline --decorate --color --graph'
over 1 year ago ·

Just install tig, a much much better command line tool for git

over 1 year ago ·

Pretty sweet!, now I can read the git log so much easier

over 1 year ago ·

As of Git 1.8.3 (May 24, 2013), you can now have (automatic) more comprehensive and useful colors on commits, branches and tags using %C(auto):

git log --graph --pretty=format:'%C(auto)%h -%d %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit
over 1 year ago ·

Cool ;)
Take it.
Thank you Filipe.

over 1 year ago ·

awesome, Boy!

over 1 year ago ·

Wow, cool. I guess I'll look at my log now than on Bitbucket or Github. Thanks for sharing.

over 1 year ago ·

nice!

over 1 year ago ·

Great..!! thank you for sharing..

over 1 year ago ·

Thanks, i'll try it

over 1 year ago ·

Awesome, really useful! :)

over 1 year ago ·

Fantastic

over 1 year ago ·

Where this command saved? I can't see it in my zshrc file.

over 1 year ago ·

Thank you for this :)

over 1 year ago ·

Thanks, this is great!

over 1 year ago ·

Amigo, muchas gracias, es un excelente aporte.

over 1 year ago ·

Using this as base I change it a little bit.

git config --global alias.lg "log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%C(#dc322f)%h%C(#b58900)%d %C(#eee8d5)%s %C(#dc322f)| %C(#586f75)%cr %C(#dc322f)| %C(#586e75)%an%Creset' --abbrev-commit"

[ Screenshot ]
https://i.imgur.com/4i8cTy2.png

over 1 year ago ·

very nice, I would suggest changing %cr to %ar as commit dates change when rebasing

over 1 year ago ·

ah... great config. really love it

over 1 year ago ·

Buddy, well done.

over 1 year ago ·

One more interesting variant:
git log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C(reset) %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset)%C(bold yellow)%d%C(reset)%n'' %C(white)%s%C(reset) %C(dim white)- %an%C(reset)' --all

over 1 year ago ·

I also want to add, you can write the git log output stream to a file and see an HTML report about your repository. There are many open-source solutions for this. For example https://github.com/bakhirev/assayo

7 months ago ·