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If you have a Git repository with merge commits that merge changes back into your main branch, all you have to do is "git log --first-parent -m" to get a log th

If you have a Git repository with merge commits that merge changes back into your main branch, all you have to do is "git log --first-parent -m" to get a log that looks exactly as if you had squashed and rebased every change. I'm surprised I don't see more people talking about this option. Sure, the syntax is inelegant, but it seems like it gives you the best of both worlds: you can browse your history as if it was linear, and drill down to the individual commits in a branch only when necessary.

tsimionescu 4y ago
Do Github, GitLab, BitBucket, or any other Git UIs support this option? Relatively few people use the command line for inspecting Git history. Not even sure Magit exposes this option directly in most places where it shows history, I believe.
- zdw 4y ago
  Gerrit has a way to look at all patches uploaded, but only take the last one which should be squashed/rebased, if it's configured that way (The "Fast forward only" option). It results in very clean history, and unmodified commit hashes from a developer's commit, whereas Github's Squash and Merge will mangle the commit message by adding a PR # to it, as well as other comments, which changes the hash. PR #'s are not as good as clean hashes, IMO. As someone who went from an org that was using Gerrit to mandatory Github usage, the latter is definitely a step backwards in code review. That said Github does have a better browsing interface than gitiles.
- graton 4y ago
  > Relatively few people use the command line for inspecting Git history. Counterpoint: I use the command line all the time to look at Git history.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    Same here. Web UIs are pretty cumbersome compared to Git and only really useful for quick lookups in recent history. For anything else, git log is much more convenient.
graton 4y ago
> all you have to do is "git log --first-parent -m" What is the `-m` for? Looking at the man page it says: "-m will produce the output only if -p is given as well." Did you mean "--max-parents=1" as a different commenter used with "--first-parent"?
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  You rarely want to use `--max-parents=1` with `--first-parent` as that will hide all merge commits and merged branches entirely. `-m` is useless here, just use `git log --first-parent`.
- teraflop 4y ago
  The "-m" doesn't do anything by itself, but it's there in case you want to add an option like "-p", which otherwise wouldn't show a useful diff for a merge commit. With "--first-parent -m -p", the log shows only the diff of the merge commit against its first parent, which is the same as what you would get from squashing.

tsimionescu 4y ago

Do Github, GitLab, BitBucket, or any other Git UIs support this option? Relatively few people use the command line for inspecting Git history. Not even sure Magit exposes this option directly in most places where it shows history, I believe.

zdw 4y ago
Gerrit has a way to look at all patches uploaded, but only take the last one which should be squashed/rebased, if it's configured that way (The "Fast forward only" option). It results in very clean history, and unmodified commit hashes from a developer's commit, whereas Github's Squash and Merge will mangle the commit message by adding a PR # to it, as well as other comments, which changes the hash. PR #'s are not as good as clean hashes, IMO. As someone who went from an org that was using Gerrit to mandatory Github usage, the latter is definitely a step backwards in code review. That said Github does have a better browsing interface than gitiles.
graton 4y ago
> Relatively few people use the command line for inspecting Git history. Counterpoint: I use the command line all the time to look at Git history.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  Same here. Web UIs are pretty cumbersome compared to Git and only really useful for quick lookups in recent history. For anything else, git log is much more convenient.

graton 4y ago

> all you have to do is "git log --first-parent -m" What is the `-m` for? Looking at the man page it says: "-m will produce the output only if -p is given as well." Did you mean "--max-parents=1" as a different commenter used with "--first-parent"?

seba_dos1 4y ago
You rarely want to use `--max-parents=1` with `--first-parent` as that will hide all merge commits and merged branches entirely. `-m` is useless here, just use `git log --first-parent`.
teraflop 4y ago
The "-m" doesn't do anything by itself, but it's there in case you want to add an option like "-p", which otherwise wouldn't show a useful diff for a merge commit. With "--first-parent -m -p", the log shows only the diff of the merge commit against its first parent, which is the same as what you would get from squashing.