gitrevisions

GITREVISIONS(7)                   Git Manual                   GITREVISIONS(7)

NAME
       gitrevisions - Specifying revisions and ranges for Git

SYNOPSIS
       gitrevisions

DESCRIPTION
       Many Git commands take revision parameters as arguments. Depending on
       the command, they denote a specific commit or, for commands which walk
       the revision graph (such as git-log(1)), all commits which are
       reachable from that commit. For commands that walk the revision graph
       one can also specify a range of revisions explicitly.

       In addition, some Git commands (such as git-show(1) and git-push(1))
       can also take revision parameters which denote other objects than
       commits, e.g. blobs ("files") or trees ("directories of files").

SPECIFYING REVISIONS
       A revision parameter <rev> typically, but not necessarily, names a
       commit object. It uses what is called an extended SHA-1 syntax. Here
       are various ways to spell object names. The ones listed near the end of
       this list name trees and blobs contained in a commit.

           Note
           This document shows the "raw" syntax as seen by git. The shell and
           other UIs might require additional quoting to protect special
           characters and to avoid word splitting.

       <sha1>, e.g. dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735, dae86e
           The full SHA-1 object name (40-byte hexadecimal string), or a
           leading substring that is unique within the repository. E.g.
           dae86e1950b1277e545cee180551750029cfe735 and dae86e both name the
           same commit object if there is no other object in your repository
           whose object name starts with dae86e.

       <describeOutput>, e.g. v1.7.4.2-679-g3bee7fb
           Output from git describe; i.e. a closest tag, optionally followed
           by a dash and a number of commits, followed by a dash, a g, and an
           abbreviated object name.

       <refname>, e.g. master, heads/master, refs/heads/master
           A symbolic ref name. E.g.  master typically means the commit object
           referenced by refs/heads/master. If you happen to have both
           heads/master and tags/master, you can explicitly say heads/master
           to tell Git which one you mean. When ambiguous, a <refname> is
           disambiguated by taking the first match in the following rules:

            1. If $GIT_DIR/<refname> exists, that is what you mean (this is
               usually useful only for HEAD, FETCH_HEAD, ORIG_HEAD, MERGE_HEAD
               and CHERRY_PICK_HEAD);

            2. otherwise, refs/<refname> if it exists;

            3. otherwise, refs/tags/<refname> if it exists;

            4. otherwise, refs/heads/<refname> if it exists;

            5. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname> if it exists;

            6. otherwise, refs/remotes/<refname>/HEAD if it exists.

               HEAD names the commit on which you based the changes in the
               working tree.  FETCH_HEAD records the branch which you fetched
               from a remote repository with your last git fetch invocation.
               ORIG_HEAD is created by commands that move your HEAD in a
               drastic way, to record the position of the HEAD before their
               operation, so that you can easily change the tip of the branch
               back to the state before you ran them.  MERGE_HEAD records the
               commit(s) which you are merging into your branch when you run
               git merge.  CHERRY_PICK_HEAD records the commit which you are
               cherry-picking when you run git cherry-pick.

               Note that any of the refs/* cases above may come either from
               the $GIT_DIR/refs directory or from the $GIT_DIR/packed-refs
               file. While the ref name encoding is unspecified, UTF-8 is
               preferred as some output processing may assume ref names in
               UTF-8.

       @
           @ alone is a shortcut for HEAD.

       [<refname>]@{<date>}, e.g. master@{yesterday}, HEAD@{5 minutes ago}
           A ref followed by the suffix @ with a date specification enclosed
           in a brace pair (e.g.  {yesterday}, {1 month 2 weeks 3 days 1 hour
           1 second ago} or {1979-02-26 18:30:00}) specifies the value of the
           ref at a prior point in time. This suffix may only be used
           immediately following a ref name and the ref must have an existing
           log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>). Note that this looks up the state of
           your local ref at a given time; e.g., what was in your local master
           branch last week. If you want to look at commits made during
           certain times, see --since and --until.

       <refname>@{<n>}, e.g. master@{1}
           A ref followed by the suffix @ with an ordinal specification
           enclosed in a brace pair (e.g.  {1}, {15}) specifies the n-th prior
           value of that ref. For example master@{1} is the immediate prior
           value of master while master@{5} is the 5th prior value of master.
           This suffix may only be used immediately following a ref name and
           the ref must have an existing log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<refname>).

       @{<n>}, e.g. @{1}
           You can use the @ construct with an empty ref part to get at a
           reflog entry of the current branch. For example, if you are on
           branch blabla then @{1} means the same as blabla@{1}.

       @{-<n>}, e.g. @{-1}
           The construct @{-<n>} means the <n>th branch/commit checked out
           before the current one.

       [<branchname>]@{upstream}, e.g. master@{upstream}, @{u}
           The suffix @{upstream} to a branchname (short form
           <branchname>@{u}) refers to the branch that the branch specified by
           branchname is set to build on top of (configured with
           branch.<name>.remote and branch.<name>.merge). A missing branchname
           defaults to the current one. These suffixes are also accepted when
           spelled in uppercase, and they mean the same thing no matter the
           case.

       [<branchname>]@{push}, e.g. master@{push}, @{push}
           The suffix @{push} reports the branch "where we would push to" if
           git push were run while branchname was checked out (or the current
           HEAD if no branchname is specified). Since our push destination is
           in a remote repository, of course, we report the local tracking
           branch that corresponds to that branch (i.e., something in
           refs/remotes/).

           Here's an example to make it more clear:

               $ git config push.default current
               $ git config remote.pushdefault myfork
               $ git switch -c mybranch origin/master

               $ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{upstream}
               refs/remotes/origin/master

               $ git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name @{push}
               refs/remotes/myfork/mybranch

           Note in the example that we set up a triangular workflow, where we
           pull from one location and push to another. In a non-triangular
           workflow, @{push} is the same as @{upstream}, and there is no need
           for it.

           This suffix is also accepted when spelled in uppercase, and means
           the same thing no matter the case.

       <rev>^[<n>], e.g. HEAD^, v1.5.1^0
           A suffix ^ to a revision parameter means the first parent of that
           commit object.  ^<n> means the <n>th parent (i.e.  <rev>^ is
           equivalent to <rev>^1). As a special rule, <rev>^0 means the commit
           itself and is used when <rev> is the object name of a tag object
           that refers to a commit object.

       <rev>~[<n>], e.g. HEAD~, master~3
           A suffix ~ to a revision parameter means the first parent of that
           commit object. A suffix ~<n> to a revision parameter means the
           commit object that is the <n>th generation ancestor of the named
           commit object, following only the first parents. I.e.  <rev>~3 is
           equivalent to <rev>^^^ which is equivalent to <rev>^1^1^1. See
           below for an illustration of the usage of this form.

       <rev>^{<type>}, e.g. v0.99.8^{commit}
           A suffix ^ followed by an object type name enclosed in brace pair
           means dereference the object at <rev> recursively until an object
           of type <type> is found or the object cannot be dereferenced
           anymore (in which case, barf). For example, if <rev> is a
           commit-ish, <rev>^{commit} describes the corresponding commit
           object. Similarly, if <rev> is a tree-ish, <rev>^{tree} describes
           the corresponding tree object.  <rev>^0 is a short-hand for
           <rev>^{commit}.

           <rev>^{object} can be used to make sure <rev> names an object that
           exists, without requiring <rev> to be a tag, and without
           dereferencing <rev>; because a tag is already an object, it does
           not have to be dereferenced even once to get to an object.

           <rev>^{tag} can be used to ensure that <rev> identifies an existing
           tag object.

       <rev>^{}, e.g. v0.99.8^{}
           A suffix ^ followed by an empty brace pair means the object could
           be a tag, and dereference the tag recursively until a non-tag
           object is found.

       <rev>^{/<text>}, e.g. HEAD^{/fix nasty bug}
           A suffix ^ to a revision parameter, followed by a brace pair that
           contains a text led by a slash, is the same as the :/fix nasty bug
           syntax below except that it returns the youngest matching commit
           which is reachable from the <rev> before ^.

       :/<text>, e.g. :/fix nasty bug
           A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a text, names a commit
           whose commit message matches the specified regular expression. This
           name returns the youngest matching commit which is reachable from
           any ref, including HEAD. The regular expression can match any part
           of the commit message. To match messages starting with a string,
           one can use e.g.  :/^foo. The special sequence :/!  is reserved for
           modifiers to what is matched.  :/!-foo performs a negative match,
           while :/!!foo matches a literal !  character, followed by foo. Any
           other sequence beginning with :/!  is reserved for now. Depending
           on the given text, the shell's word splitting rules might require
           additional quoting.

       <rev>:<path>, e.g. HEAD:README, master:./README
           A suffix : followed by a path names the blob or tree at the given
           path in the tree-ish object named by the part before the colon. A
           path starting with ./ or ../ is relative to the current working
           directory. The given path will be converted to be relative to the
           working tree's root directory. This is most useful to address a
           blob or tree from a commit or tree that has the same tree structure
           as the working tree.

       :[<n>:]<path>, e.g. :0:README, :README
           A colon, optionally followed by a stage number (0 to 3) and a
           colon, followed by a path, names a blob object in the index at the
           given path. A missing stage number (and the colon that follows it)
           names a stage 0 entry. During a merge, stage 1 is the common
           ancestor, stage 2 is the target branch's version (typically the
           current branch), and stage 3 is the version from the branch which
           is being merged.

       Here is an illustration, by Jon Loeliger. Both commit nodes B and C are
       parents of commit node A. Parent commits are ordered left-to-right.

           G   H   I   J
            \ /     \ /
             D   E   F
              \  |  / \
               \ | /   |
                \|/    |
                 B     C
                  \   /
                   \ /
                    A

           A =      = A^0
           B = A^   = A^1     = A~1
           C = A^2  = A^2
           D = A^^  = A^1^1   = A~2
           E = B^2  = A^^2
           F = B^3  = A^^3
           G = A^^^ = A^1^1^1 = A~3
           H = D^2  = B^^2    = A^^^2  = A~2^2
           I = F^   = B^3^    = A^^3^
           J = F^2  = B^3^2   = A^^3^2

SPECIFYING RANGES
       History traversing commands such as git log operate on a set of
       commits, not just a single commit.

       For these commands, specifying a single revision, using the notation
       described in the previous section, means the set of commits reachable
       from the given commit.

       A commit's reachable set is the commit itself and the commits in its
       ancestry chain.

   Commit Exclusions
       ^<rev> (caret) Notation
           To exclude commits reachable from a commit, a prefix ^ notation is
           used. E.g.  ^r1 r2 means commits reachable from r2 but exclude the
           ones reachable from r1 (i.e.  r1 and its ancestors).

   Dotted Range Notations
       The .. (two-dot) Range Notation
           The ^r1 r2 set operation appears so often that there is a shorthand
           for it. When you have two commits r1 and r2 (named according to the
           syntax explained in SPECIFYING REVISIONS above), you can ask for
           commits that are reachable from r2 excluding those that are
           reachable from r1 by ^r1 r2 and it can be written as r1..r2.

       The ... (three-dot) Symmetric Difference Notation
           A similar notation r1...r2 is called symmetric difference of r1 and
           r2 and is defined as r1 r2 --not $(git merge-base --all r1 r2). It
           is the set of commits that are reachable from either one of r1
           (left side) or r2 (right side) but not from both.

       In these two shorthand notations, you can omit one end and let it
       default to HEAD. For example, origin.. is a shorthand for origin..HEAD
       and asks "What did I do since I forked from the origin branch?"
       Similarly, ..origin is a shorthand for HEAD..origin and asks "What did
       the origin do since I forked from them?" Note that .. would mean
       HEAD..HEAD which is an empty range that is both reachable and
       unreachable from HEAD.

   Other <rev>^ Parent Shorthand Notations
       Three other shorthands exist, particularly useful for merge commits,
       for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its parent commits.

       The r1^@ notation means all parents of r1.

       The r1^! notation includes commit r1 but excludes all of its parents.
       By itself, this notation denotes the single commit r1.

       The <rev>^-[<n>] notation includes <rev> but excludes the <n>th parent
       (i.e. a shorthand for <rev>^<n>..<rev>), with <n> = 1 if not given.
       This is typically useful for merge commits where you can just pass
       <commit>^- to get all the commits in the branch that was merged in
       merge commit <commit> (including <commit> itself).

       While <rev>^<n> was about specifying a single commit parent, these
       three notations also consider its parents. For example you can say
       HEAD^2^@, however you cannot say HEAD^@^2.

REVISION RANGE SUMMARY
       <rev>
           Include commits that are reachable from <rev> (i.e. <rev> and its
           ancestors).

       ^<rev>
           Exclude commits that are reachable from <rev> (i.e. <rev> and its
           ancestors).

       <rev1>..<rev2>
           Include commits that are reachable from <rev2> but exclude those
           that are reachable from <rev1>. When either <rev1> or <rev2> is
           omitted, it defaults to HEAD.

       <rev1>...<rev2>
           Include commits that are reachable from either <rev1> or <rev2> but
           exclude those that are reachable from both. When either <rev1> or
           <rev2> is omitted, it defaults to HEAD.

       <rev>^@, e.g. HEAD^@
           A suffix ^ followed by an at sign is the same as listing all
           parents of <rev> (meaning, include anything reachable from its
           parents, but not the commit itself).

       <rev>^!, e.g. HEAD^!
           A suffix ^ followed by an exclamation mark is the same as giving
           commit <rev> and then all its parents prefixed with ^ to exclude
           them (and their ancestors).

       <rev>^-<n>, e.g. HEAD^-, HEAD^-2
           Equivalent to <rev>^<n>..<rev>, with <n> = 1 if not given.

       Here are a handful of examples using the Loeliger illustration above,
       with each step in the notation's expansion and selection carefully
       spelt out:

              Args   Expanded arguments    Selected commits
              D                            G H D
              D F                          G H I J D F
              ^G D                         H D
              ^D B                         E I J F B
              ^D B C                       E I J F B C
              C                            I J F C
              B..C   = ^B C                C
              B...C  = B ^F C              G H D E B C
              B^-    = B^..B
                     = ^B^1 B              E I J F B
              C^@    = C^1
                     = F                   I J F
              B^@    = B^1 B^2 B^3
                     = D E F               D G H E F I J
              C^!    = C ^C^@
                     = C ^C^1
                     = C ^F                C
              B^!    = B ^B^@
                     = B ^B^1 ^B^2 ^B^3
                     = B ^D ^E ^F          B
              F^! D  = F ^I ^J D           G H D F

SEE ALSO
       git-rev-parse(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                   GITREVISIONS(7)
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