Exploring the Git log command

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash

Git is a version control system used by a wide range of software developers. It includes very many commands but in this post we are going to look at the different flags you can use with the git log command. We are going to use React an OpenSource project by Facebook since it has many contributors and will enable us to effectively demonstrate the use of the Git log command.

Set up

Download Git if you do not already have it. After installing it clone the React repository from Github onto your local machine by running this command in your terminal.

git clone git@github.com:facebook/react.git

After the repository has finished downloading move into the react folder using the command below and this is where the React code resides. We shall run all our commands using the terminal.

cd react

Note: By the time you read this, the React repository might have changed but the concepts/commands are the same. It is only the output that will differ.

Basic Git log

If you have been using git for a while, I am sure you have used the git log command to see your commit or other's commit message history. Let's run the command below in the terminal and see what happens.

git log

output

commit 17aa4d4682aa5c6fdbd3fb0d65e2d69769fe2d61 (HEAD -> master, tag: 16.1.0-rc, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 22:59:38 2017 +0000
    Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-rc release
commit 2437e2c3daee16b2db9d1ae86450dff62ae63680
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 22:54:10 2017 +0000
    Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-rc
commit c83596df65b1df3f95154689a5cc0712b7b4de5d
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 22:37:11 2017 +0000
    Consolidate build process with GCC (#11483)
    * Consolidate build process with GCC
    * Record sizes
    * Refactor header and footer wrapping
    It is easier to understand if we just explicitly type them out.
commit e88f292041378aef473cc0c39b293efb89933558
Author: Mitermayer Reis <mitermayer.reis@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 13:23:46 2017 -0800
    Fixing typo on test (#11495)
    - As ironicaly as it sounds the tests was checking for misspelling
commit 8a0285fb43a3109aa7cd7b31ad91b007910fc5f8
Author: Brian Vaughn <brian.david.vaughn@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 19:59:26 2017 +0000
    Release script follow-up (#11482)
    * Add a timeout before querying npm right after publish
    * Conditionally log some post publish steps
    * Print ready-to-paste 'yarn add' instructions for CRA prerelease testing
commit a2ec771360966f7a9b91698a7626931cbc7f9105
Author: Haroen Viaene <fingebimus@me.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 19:48:19 2017 +0100
    docs(readme): correct link for "your first PR" (#11489)
    This info is now on the website and not in CONTRIBUTING.md

From the above terminal output we can see that we are on the master branch and that the latest commit message is by Dan Abramov dated Wed Nov 8 22:54:10 2017 +0000 with a commit message Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-rc release. Therefore by default this command displays the commit SHA, author, date and message.

To scroll through the commit messages press k to move up, j to move down, the spacebar to scroll down by a full page,b to scroll up by a page and q to quit out of the log.

— oneline

Let us move on to using the oneline command.

git log --oneline

This command lists one commit per line, shows the first 7 characters of the commit SHA and the commit message.

output

17aa4d468 (HEAD -> master, tag: 16.1.0-rc, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-rc release
2437e2c3d Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-rc
c83596df6 Consolidate build process with GCC (#11483)
e88f29204 Fixing typo on test (#11495)
8a0285fb4 Release script follow-up (#11482)
a2ec77136 docs(readme): correct link for "your first PR" (#11489)
c932885e7 Fix React.createFactory() crash (#11484)
94f44aeba Update prettier to 1.8.1 (#10785)
05f3ecc3e Performance tool: Warn when interrupting an in-progress tree (#11480)
de48ad164 Add react-call-return to publish list
0bd2c2bb3 Fix error reporting in release script
a653f910f (tag: 16.1.0-beta.1) Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-beta.1 release
0acde0437 Update error codes for 16.1.0-beta.1 release
97a7c5f0d Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-beta.1
b2ff29d38 Add missing "files" field to react-call-return package
cbd6d4341 Amend changelog
48012ef83 Add warning for componentDidReceiveProps() (#11479)
acb268c57 minor typo (#11477)
2c228f15a Correctly replace shims using relative requires (#11472)
4480f75ff Amend changelog
96914c98d Split static and dynamic www feature flags (#11471)
3b27160f8 Put perf integration behind a feature flag (#11455)
699496164 Record sizes
46f7b0d94 Fix dead code elimination for feature flags (#11453)
b6a7beefe Use Rollup legacy mode for www builds (#11469)
8e7cb8578 Expose injectIntoDevTools() to renderers (#11463)
bb3c22c66 Use const/let in more places (#11467)
1d1f7038e Handle prettier error (#11466)
40fbed572 Use prettier api (#11458)

— stat

Copy and paste this statistics command into your terminal.

git log --stat

This command shows the file(s) that have been modified, the number of lines that have been added or removed and also displays a summary line of the total number of files changed and the lines that have been added or removed.

output

commit 17aa4d4682aa5c6fdbd3fb0d65e2d69769fe2d61 (HEAD -> master, tag: 16.1.0-rc, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 22:59:38 2017 +0000
    Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-rc release
 scripts/rollup/results.json | 180 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1 file changed, 90 insertions(+), 90 deletions(-)
commit 2437e2c3daee16b2db9d1ae86450dff62ae63680
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 22:54:10 2017 +0000
    Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-rc
 package.json                              | 2 +-
 packages/react-art/package.json           | 2 +-
 packages/react-call-return/package.json   | 2 +-
 packages/react-dom/package.json           | 2 +-
 packages/react-reconciler/package.json    | 2 +-
 packages/react-test-renderer/package.json | 2 +-
 packages/react/package.json               | 2 +-
 packages/shared/ReactVersion.js           | 2 +-
 8 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
commit c83596df65b1df3f95154689a5cc0712b7b4de5d
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 22:37:11 2017 +0000
    Consolidate build process with GCC (#11483)
    * Consolidate build process with GCC
    * Record sizes
    * Refactor header and footer wrapping
    It is easier to understand if we just explicitly type them out.
 package.json                      |   4 +-
 scripts/circleci/check_modules.sh |   2 +-
 scripts/rollup/build.js           | 388 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 scripts/rollup/header.js          |  32 --------------
 scripts/rollup/results.json       | 208 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------------------------------------
 scripts/rollup/wrappers.js        | 199 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 yarn.lock                         |  75 ++++++++++++++++++++++----------
 7 files changed, 452 insertions(+), 456 deletions(-)

-p

In addition to the default output, this command(patch) displays the files that have been modified, location of the lines that have been added or removed and the actual changes that have been made.

git log -p

output

commit c83596df65b1df3f95154689a5cc0712b7b4de5d
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Nov 8 22:37:11 2017 +0000
    Consolidate build process with GCC (#11483)
    * Consolidate build process with GCC
    * Record sizes
    * Refactor header and footer wrapping
    It is easier to understand if we just explicitly type them out.
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 4b42bb5eb..6ad648605 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -83,13 +83,13 @@
     "rollup-plugin-commonjs": "^8.2.6",
     "rollup-plugin-inject": "^2.0.0",
     "rollup-plugin-node-resolve": "^2.0.0",
+    "rollup-plugin-prettier": "^0.3.0",
     "rollup-plugin-replace": "^1.1.1",
-    "rollup-plugin-uglify": "^1.0.1",
+    "rollup-plugin-strip-banner": "^0.2.0",
     "run-sequence": "^1.1.4",
     "through2": "^2.0.0",
     "tmp": "~0.0.28",
     "typescript": "~1.8.10",
-    "uglify-js": "^2.5.0",
     "yargs": "^6.3.0"
   },
   "devEngines": {
diff --git a/scripts/circleci/check_modules.sh b/scripts/circleci/check_modules.sh
index b71b4cd61..8ecd67dfb 100755
--- a/scripts/circleci/check_modules.sh
+++ b/scripts/circleci/check_modules.sh
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ set -e
 # Make sure we don't introduce accidental @providesModule annotations.
 EXPECTED='packages/react-cs-renderer/src/ReactNativeCSTypes.js
 packages/react-native-renderer/src/ReactNativeTypes.js
-scripts/rollup/header.js'
+scripts/rollup/wrappers.js'
 ACTUAL=$(git grep -l @providesModule -- './*.js' ':!scripts/rollup/shims/*.js')
 if [ "$EXPECTED" != "$ACTUAL" ]; then
diff --git a/scripts/rollup/build.js b/scripts/rollup/build.js
index e1756d717..a84208620 100644
--- a/scripts/rollup/build.js
+++ b/scripts/rollup/build.js
@@ -2,10 +2,12 @@
 const rollup = require('rollup').rollup;
:

show

When the show method is used, it displays all the default information but for only one commit. When a commit SHA is not specified the latest commit is displayed and the output is the same as that displayed by the patch -p command.

git show

You can also specify a commit SHA to display information about that commit only. For example:

git show 97a7c5f0d

output

commit 97a7c5f0d490a6ef8f5039caf70d62403dae6cd3
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Tue Nov 7 14:51:36 2017 +0000
    Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-beta.1
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 3e2f59215..1a075a75a 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "private": true,
-  "version": "16.1.0-beta",
+  "version": "16.1.0-beta.1",
   "workspaces": [
     "packages/*"
   ],
diff --git a/packages/react-art/package.json b/packages/react-art/package.json
index a2c8e4035..24c96d291 100644
--- a/packages/react-art/package.json
+++ b/packages/react-art/package.json
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 {
   "name": "react-art",
   "description": "React ART is a JavaScript library for drawing vector graphics using React. It provides declarative and reactive bindings to the ART library. Using the same declarative API you can render the output to either Canvas, SVG or VML (IE8).",
-  "version": "16.1.0-beta",
+  "version": "16.1.0-beta.1",
   "main": "index.js",
   "repository": "facebook/react",
   "keywords": [
diff --git a/packages/react-dom/package.json b/packages/react-dom/package.json
index b13f9d38e..566bcc10e 100644
--- a/packages/react-dom/package.json
+++ b/packages/react-dom/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
commit 97a7c5f0d490a6ef8f5039caf70d62403dae6cd3
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Tue Nov 7 14:51:36 2017 +0000
    Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-beta.1
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 3e2f59215..1a075a75a 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "private": true,
-  "version": "16.1.0-beta",
+  "version": "16.1.0-beta.1",
   "workspaces": [
     "packages/*"
   ],
diff --git a/packages/react-art/package.json b/packages/react-art/package.json
index a2c8e4035..24c96d291 100644
--- a/packages/react-art/package.json
+++ b/packages/react-art/package.json
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 {
   "name": "react-art",
   "description": "React ART is a JavaScript library for drawing vector graphics using React. It provides declarative and reactive bindings to the ART library. Using the same declarative API you can render the output to either Canvas, SVG or VML (IE8).",
-  "version": "16.1.0-beta",
+  "version": "16.1.0-beta.1",
   "main": "index.js",
   "repository": "facebook/react",
   "keywords": [

The git show can also be combined with most of the above flags to get a clean display of the commit. Try out the command below in your terminal.

git show 97a7c5f0d --stat

output

commit 97a7c5f0d490a6ef8f5039caf70d62403dae6cd3
Author: Dan Abramov <dan.abramov@gmail.com>
Date:   Tue Nov 7 14:51:36 2017 +0000
    Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-beta.1
 package.json                              | 2 +-
 packages/react-art/package.json           | 2 +-
 packages/react-dom/package.json           | 2 +-
 packages/react-reconciler/package.json    | 2 +-
 packages/react-test-renderer/package.json | 2 +-
 packages/react/package.json               | 2 +-
 packages/shared/ReactVersion.js           | 2 +-
 7 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
(END)

Group commits by author

Git also enables us to group commits by their authors. This is handy especially for big projects or repositories like this one. The command used for this is shown below.

git shortlog

output

Aaron Ackerman (1):
      Point users to the npm page instead of the github project for prop-types (#9373)
Aaron Cannon (1):
      Make it clear that textarea also supports defaultValue. (#9318)
Aaron Franks (4):
      Add top-level API docs section for React.createElement.
      Add type signature info to top-level API docs.
      Add top-level API docs for React.createFactory.
      Docs: ReactComponent -> ReactClass in a few places
Aaron Gelter (1):
      Added support for the 'low', 'high', and 'optimum' attributes that the <meter> tag requires.
Abhay Nikam (4):
      Updated recommended links for installation in readme (#9425)
      Updated the Good First Bug section in readme (#9429)
      Warning added if defaultProps were defined as an instance property (#9433)
      Warning message updated if defaultProps were defined as an instance property (#9493)
Abhishek Soni (1):
      Fixed grammar (#9432)
Adam (1):
      Remove ref usage in main markdown example (#9160)
Adam Bloomston (1):
      Include react-dom
Adam Krebs (1):
      Serve unminified react on docs site. Fixes #1359
Adam Mark (2):
      Close <section> tag in sample markup
      Copy edit (fix grammar)
Adam Solove (1):
      Add svg text-anchor attribute.
Adam Stankiewicz (1):
      Document stateless components in formal types

We can go further and only show the number of commits made by each author by running the following command.

git shortlog -s

output

1  243083df
     1  839
     1  Aaron Ackerman
     1  Aaron Cannon
     4  Aaron Franks
     1  Aaron Gelter
     4  Abhay Nikam
     1  Abhishek Soni
     1  Adam
     1  Adam Bloomston
     1  Adam Krebs
     2  Adam Mark
     1  Adam Solove
     1  Adam Stankiewicz
     2  Adam Timberlake
     1  Adam Zapletal
     1  Addy Osmani
     1  Adrian Sieber
     1  Aesop Wolf
     1  Ahmad Wali Sidiqi
     2  Alan Plum
     1  Alan Souza
     3  Alan deLevie
     1  Alastair Hole
     1  Aleem
     2  Alex
     1  Alex Babkov
     1  Alex Baumgertner
     2  Alex Boatwright
     1  Alex Boyd
     1  Alex Cordeiro
     1  Alex Dajani
     1  Alex Jacobs
     1  Alex Katopodis
     1  Alex Lopatin
     1  Alex Mykyta
     3  Alex Pien
    10  Alex Smith

You can go further and sort the commits numerically instead of alphabetically by running the following command. This command shows all the commits by the author.

git shortlog -n

output

Note that this output does not show all the commit messages.

Paul O’Shannessy (1776):
      Initial public release
      Update release task to keep correct filename case
      Merge pull request #7 from jeffreylin/master
      Enable Travis-CI
      Add `grunt-cli` to devDependencies to make sure it's installed for travisci
      Merge pull request #9 from chroman/master
      Fix react-tools module
      Merge pull request #17 from seiffert/master
      Merge pull request #22 from yungsters/docs
      Update bower install command
      Merge branch 'master' of github.com:facebook/react
      Bump to 0.3.1
      Only re-write docs _config on version bumps
      Bump docs version to v0.3.1
      Ship CJS modules instead of browserified build
      v0.3.2
      Merge pull request #44 from vjeux/script_download
      Merge pull request #38 from camspiers/range-attributes
      Improve blog setup
      Merge pull request #49 from paulshen/jekyllrss
      Merge pull request #43 from vjeux/jsfiddle
      Update links in readme to 0.3.2
      Fix broken link in Why React post
      Merge pull request #32 from spicyj/input

Lastly you can use the -s and -n flags together with the shortlog command to display a more precise output that shows the number of commits by author sorted numerically.

git shortlog -s -n

output

1776  Paul O’Shannessy
  1220  Sophie Alpert
   687  Dan Abramov
   615  Sebastian Markbåge
   456  Jim Sproch
   369  Andrew Clark
   332  Pete Hunt
   222  Cheng Lou
   207  Vjeux
   161  Brian Vaughn
   140  Ben Newman
   130  Jeff Morrison
   115  Thomas Aylott
   110  Timothy Yung

Pretty

We can also customize the log output in the terminal by using the --pretty flag. All we need to do is to use placeholders that will be replaced by the commit text when the command is run.

git log --pretty="%cn committed %h on %cd"

%cn stands for commit name, %h for the commit hash and %cd for the commit date.

output

Dan Abramov committed 17aa4d468 on Wed Nov 8 22:59:38 2017 +0000
Dan Abramov committed 2437e2c3d on Wed Nov 8 22:54:10 2017 +0000
GitHub committed c83596df6 on Wed Nov 8 22:37:11 2017 +0000
Brian Vaughn committed 1298e15f8 on Thu Nov 2 15:34:31 2017 -0700
Brian Vaughn committed 830655330 on Thu Nov 2 15:34:31 2017 -0700
Brian Vaughn committed 00e27eaf1 on Thu Nov 2 15:32:36 2017 -0700

Filter by author

We can display all commits by an author by using the regular git log command including the author flag. For our example we are going to use Dan Abramov as the author to filter by.

git log --author="Dan Abramov"

We can add the oneline flag to display Dan Abramov commit details each on one line using the command below.

git log --author="Dan Abramov" --oneline

output

Note that this output does not show all the commit messages.

17aa4d468 (HEAD -> master, tag: 16.1.0-rc, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-rc release
2437e2c3d Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-rc
c83596df6 Consolidate build process with GCC (#11483)
c932885e7 Fix React.createFactory() crash (#11484)
de48ad164 Add react-call-return to publish list
0bd2c2bb3 Fix error reporting in release script
a653f910f (tag: 16.1.0-beta.1) Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-beta.1 release
0acde0437 Update error codes for 16.1.0-beta.1 release
97a7c5f0d Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-beta.1
b2ff29d38 Add missing "files" field to react-call-return package
cbd6d4341 Amend changelog
2c228f15a Correctly replace shims using relative requires (#11472)
4480f75ff Amend changelog
96914c98d Split static and dynamic www feature flags (#11471)
3b27160f8 Put perf integration behind a feature flag (#11455)
699496164 Record sizes
46f7b0d94 Fix dead code elimination for feature flags (#11453)
b6a7beefe Use Rollup legacy mode for www builds (#11469)
8e7cb8578 Expose injectIntoDevTools() to renderers (#11463)
92b7b172c Use named exports in more places (#11457)
646781b0b Tweak the bundle validation script
028691b43 Update changelog
8de8be07a Add a way to suppress DevTools logs and warnings (#11448)
221aa954f Refer people to "good first issue"
61d35ce1f Record sizes and fix bundle lint
fd47129ce Remove support for passing badly typed elements to shallow renderer (#11442)
c2b68dae6 Fix typo
6ad203630 Add a link to RCR explanation
73bb99626 Update changelog

Filter by amount

We can limit the git log output by including the -<n> option. This enables us to specify how many log messages are printed in the terminal. We can add the --oneline flag to show each commit on one line.

git log -4 --oneline

output

17aa4d468 (HEAD -> master, tag: 16.1.0-rc, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-rc release
2437e2c3d Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-rc
c83596df6 Consolidate build process with GCC (#11483)
e88f29204 Fixing typo on test (#11495)

Filter by date

Filtering by date enables you to look for a commmit from a specific time frame using the --after or the --before flags. They accept a variety of date formats as the parameters. For example we can show the commit logs after 1-7-2017 (first July 2017) using the command below.

git log --after="1-7-2017"

And we can also show the commit logs before 1-7-2017 (first July 2017) using the command below.

git log --before="1-7-2017"

In order to demonstrate this, I have added a few flags from above and came up with the command below.

git log --after="1-7-2017" --oneline --pretty="%cn committed %h on %cd"

output

Dan Abramov committed 17aa4d468 on Wed Nov 8 22:59:38 2017 +0000
Dan Abramov committed 2437e2c3d on Wed Nov 8 22:54:10 2017 +0000
GitHub committed c83596df6 on Wed Nov 8 22:37:11 2017 +0000
Dan Abramov committed e88f29204 on Wed Nov 8 21:23:46 2017 +0000
GitHub committed 8a0285fb4 on Wed Nov 8 19:59:26 2017 +0000
Dan Abramov committed a2ec77136 on Wed Nov 8 18:48:19 2017 +0000
GitHub committed c932885e7 on Wed Nov 8 00:02:07 2017 +0000
GitHub committed 94f44aeba on Tue Nov 7 18:09:33 2017 +0000
GitHub committed 05f3ecc3e on Tue Nov 7 16:52:48 2017 +0000
GitHub committed de48ad164 on Tue Nov 7 16:16:46 2017 +0000

We can also use strings such as yesterday or a week ago to show commits that belong to those time frames.

git log --before="a week ago" --oneline --pretty="%cn committed %h on %cd"

output

Dan Abramov committed 17aa4d468 on Wed Nov 8 22:59:38 2017 +0000
Dan Abramov committed 2437e2c3d on Wed Nov 8 22:54:10 2017 +0000
GitHub committed c83596df6 on Wed Nov 8 22:37:11 2017 +0000
Dan Abramov committed e88f29204 on Wed Nov 8 21:23:46 2017 +0000
GitHub committed 8a0285fb4 on Wed Nov 8 19:59:26 2017 +0000
Dan Abramov committed a2ec77136 on Wed Nov 8 18:48:19 2017 +0000
GitHub committed c932885e7 on Wed Nov 8 00:02:07 2017 +0000
GitHub committed 94f44aeba on Tue Nov 7 18:09:33 2017 +0000
GitHub committed 05f3ecc3e on Tue Nov 7 16:52:48 2017 +0000
GitHub committed de48ad164 on Tue Nov 7 16:16:46 2017 +0000

The after and before flags can also be used together to display the commit logs between a certain time frame.

Filter by merge commits.

The --merges flag is used to display a log with only merge commits and the --no-merges flag does the opposite. Below is the command that shows the merge commits and its output.

git log --merges

output

commit 04713fc4bd2627c25ed2b0ec046a44b7e4d43c9d
Merge: d9915db43 a734aecc9
Author: Sasha Aickin <xander76@yahoo.com>
Date:   Fri Mar 31 15:42:07 2017 -0700
    Merge pull request #9264 from aickin/server-render-unit-tests-forms
    Adding SSR test for form fields.
commit 09f0a5ded9288b2a5bab341ec5da3f08a3f44fbb
Merge: aaabd655a 660306982
Author: Dominic Gannaway <trueadm@users.noreply.github.com>
Date:   Wed Mar 29 13:55:04 2017 +0100
    Merge pull request #9276 from trueadm/getDeclarationErrorAddendum_DEV
    [Fiber] Adds DEV condition around getDeclarationErrorAddendum
commit 090efbdb175b1818b1864e33db5c0c36d583e329
Merge: 29d971089 f6a64cad5
Author: Andrew Clark <acdlite@fb.com>
Date:   Mon Mar 27 12:48:39 2017 -0700
    Merge branch 'giamir-add_toggle_to_fiber_triangle_demo'

Decorate

The --decorate flag shows a log of the commits and to which branch and tag they belong. Unfortunately for this repository does not effectively demonstrate it well but the snippet below shows the HEAD and tag to which some commits belong. We add the --oneline flag to show each commit on one line.

git log --decorate --oneline

output

17aa4d468 (HEAD -> master, tag: 16.1.0-rc, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-rc release
2437e2c3d Updating package versions for release 16.1.0-rc
05f3ecc3e Performance tool: Warn when interrupting an in-progress tree (#11480)
de48ad164 Add react-call-return to publish list
0bd2c2bb3 Fix error reporting in release script
a653f910f (tag: 16.1.0-beta.1) Update bundle sizes for 16.1.0-beta.1 release

Conclusion

At this point you must be fairly confident and comfortable using the git log command and its flags. With this knowledge you are now able to navigate through your commit history, format the output and also be able to exactly locate the commit you are looking for.

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