Git search commit messages using the command line
We can format git logthe command to show commits with commit messages that match a specified pattern. This makes it easier when you want to find a commit but your repository has hundreds of commits.
This article will discuss the process of searching the commit history and filtering by commit messages.
Search commit messages using the command line
Although it would be easier to review our commit history using the git log command with the --oneline flag as shown below.
The list goes on and on, and since we have over 200 commits in this repository, browsing this list will take time. We can simplify it by formatting the git log command so that it can be filtered according to our needs.
In our case, we want to display the commits whose commit message has Update. We can run git logthe command as shown below.
Order:
$ git log --grep=Update
The command above will display any commit whose message matches the pattern update.
The output is as follows:
Our repository still has many commits with updates in their messages. We can add the --oneline flag to simplify the output.
Order:
$ git log --grep=Update --oneline
The output is as follows:
It's that simple. Let's quickly look at other filtering options in Git.
Filter commit history by author
You can git logfilter your commit history by author using the command.
Order:
$ git log --author="Authors-name"
Filter commit history by content
You can use git logto search for commits whose changes introduced or removed specific patterns in lines of code.
Order:
$ git log -S"Content"
Now, let's take an example where we will try to search for commits that introduced or removed the phrase API in a single line of code.
Order:
$ git log -S"API" --oneline
Again, we include the --oneline option to simplify the display.
Output:
Summarize
Git allows us to filter out the output of the git log command when we want to search the commit history . In addition, we can make the output showing the commit history simpler.
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