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English ▾ Topics ▾ Version 2.13.7 ▾ pretty-formats last updated in 2.44.0

PRETTY FORMATS

If the commit is a merge, and if the pretty-format is not oneline, email or raw, an additional line is inserted before the Author: line. This line begins with "Merge: " and the sha1s of ancestral commits are printed, separated by spaces. Note that the listed commits may not necessarily be the list of the direct parent commits if you have limited your view of history: for example, if you are only interested in changes related to a certain directory or file.

There are several built-in formats, and you can define additional formats by setting a pretty.<name> config option to either another format name, or a format: string, as described below (see git-config[1]). Here are the details of the built-in formats:

  • oneline

    <sha1> <title line>

    This is designed to be as compact as possible.

  • short

    commit <sha1>
    Author: <author>
    <title line>
  • medium

    commit <sha1>
    Author: <author>
    Date:   <author date>
    <title line>
    <full commit message>
  • full

    commit <sha1>
    Author: <author>
    Commit: <committer>
    <title line>
    <full commit message>
  • fuller

    commit <sha1>
    Author:     <author>
    AuthorDate: <author date>
    Commit:     <committer>
    CommitDate: <committer date>
    <title line>
    <full commit message>
  • email

    From <sha1> <date>
    From: <author>
    Date: <author date>
    Subject: [PATCH] <title line>
    <full commit message>
  • raw

    The raw format shows the entire commit exactly as stored in the commit object. Notably, the SHA-1s are displayed in full, regardless of whether --abbrev or --no-abbrev are used, and parents information show the true parent commits, without taking grafts or history simplification into account. Note that this format affects the way commits are displayed, but not the way the diff is shown e.g. with git log --raw. To get full object names in a raw diff format, use --no-abbrev.

  • format:<string>

    The format:<string> format allows you to specify which information you want to show. It works a little bit like printf format, with the notable exception that you get a newline with %n instead of \n.

    E.g, format:"The author of %h was %an, %ar%nThe title was >>%s<<%n" would show something like this:

    The author of fe6e0ee was Junio C Hamano, 23 hours ago
    The title was >>t4119: test autocomputing -p<n> for traditional diff input.<<

    The placeholders are:

    • %H: commit hash

    • %h: abbreviated commit hash

    • %T: tree hash

    • %t: abbreviated tree hash

    • %P: parent hashes

    • %p: abbreviated parent hashes

    • %an: author name

    • %aN: author name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog[1] or git-blame[1])

    • %ae: author email

    • %aE: author email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog[1] or git-blame[1])

    • %ad: author date (format respects --date= option)

    • %aD: author date, RFC2822 style

    • %ar: author date, relative

    • %at: author date, UNIX timestamp

    • %ai: author date, ISO 8601-like format

    • %aI: author date, strict ISO 8601 format

    • %cn: committer name

    • %cN: committer name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog[1] or git-blame[1])

    • %ce: committer email

    • %cE: committer email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog[1] or git-blame[1])

    • %cd: committer date (format respects --date= option)

    • %cD: committer date, RFC2822 style

    • %cr: committer date, relative

    • %ct: committer date, UNIX timestamp

    • %ci: committer date, ISO 8601-like format

    • %cI: committer date, strict ISO 8601 format

    • %d: ref names, like the --decorate option of git-log[1]

    • %D: ref names without the " (", ")" wrapping.

    • %e: encoding

    • %s: subject

    • %f: sanitized subject line, suitable for a filename

    • %b: body

    • %B: raw body (unwrapped subject and body)

    • %N: commit notes

    • %GG: raw verification message from GPG for a signed commit

    • %G?: show "G" for a good (valid) signature, "B" for a bad signature, "U" for a good signature with unknown validity, "X" for a good signature that has expired, "Y" for a good signature made by an expired key, "R" for a good signature made by a revoked key, "E" if the signature cannot be checked (e.g. missing key) and "N" for no signature

    • %GS: show the name of the signer for a signed commit

    • %GK: show the key used to sign a signed commit

    • %gD: reflog selector, e.g., refs/stash@{1} or refs/stash@{2 minutes ago}; the format follows the rules described for the -g option. The portion before the @ is the refname as given on the command line (so git log -g refs/heads/master would yield refs/heads/master@{0}).

    • %gd: shortened reflog selector; same as %gD, but the refname portion is shortened for human readability (so refs/heads/master becomes just master).

    • %gn: reflog identity name

    • %gN: reflog identity name (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog[1] or git-blame[1])

    • %ge: reflog identity email

    • %gE: reflog identity email (respecting .mailmap, see git-shortlog[1] or git-blame[1])

    • %gs: reflog subject

    • %Cred: switch color to red

    • %Cgreen: switch color to green

    • %Cblue: switch color to blue

    • %Creset: reset color

    • %C(…​): color specification, as described under Values in the "CONFIGURATION FILE" section of git-config[1]; adding auto, at the beginning (e.g. %C(auto,red)) will emit color only when colors are enabled for log output (by color.diff, color.ui, or --color, and respecting the auto settings of the former if we are going to a terminal). auto alone (i.e. %C(auto)) will turn on auto coloring on the next placeholders until the color is switched again.

    • %m: left (<), right (>) or boundary (-) mark

    • %n: newline

    • %%: a raw %

    • %x00: print a byte from a hex code

    • %w([<w>[,<i1>[,<i2>]]]): switch line wrapping, like the -w option of git-shortlog[1].

    • %<(<N>[,trunc|ltrunc|mtrunc]): make the next placeholder take at least N columns, padding spaces on the right if necessary. Optionally truncate at the beginning (ltrunc), the middle (mtrunc) or the end (trunc) if the output is longer than N columns. Note that truncating only works correctly with N >= 2.

    • %<|(<N>): make the next placeholder take at least until Nth columns, padding spaces on the right if necessary

    • %>(<N>), %>|(<N>): similar to %<(<N>), %<|(<N>) respectively, but padding spaces on the left

    • %>>(<N>), %>>|(<N>): similar to %>(<N>), %>|(<N>) respectively, except that if the next placeholder takes more spaces than given and there are spaces on its left, use those spaces

    • %><(<N>), %><|(<N>): similar to % <(<N>), %<|(<N>) respectively, but padding both sides (i.e. the text is centered)

    • %(trailers): display the trailers of the body as interpreted by git-interpret-trailers[1]

Note
Some placeholders may depend on other options given to the revision traversal engine. For example, the %g* reflog options will insert an empty string unless we are traversing reflog entries (e.g., by git log -g). The %d and %D placeholders will use the "short" decoration format if --decorate was not already provided on the command line.

If you add a + (plus sign) after % of a placeholder, a line-feed is inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

If you add a - (minus sign) after % of a placeholder, all consecutive line-feeds immediately preceding the expansion are deleted if and only if the placeholder expands to an empty string.

If you add a ` ` (space) after % of a placeholder, a space is inserted immediately before the expansion if and only if the placeholder expands to a non-empty string.

  • tformat:

    The tformat: format works exactly like format:, except that it provides "terminator" semantics instead of "separator" semantics. In other words, each commit has the message terminator character (usually a newline) appended, rather than a separator placed between entries. This means that the final entry of a single-line format will be properly terminated with a new line, just as the "oneline" format does. For example:

    $ git log -2 --pretty=format:%h 4da45bef \
      | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
    4da45be
    7134973 -- NO NEWLINE
    
    $ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef \
      | perl -pe '$_ .= " -- NO NEWLINE\n" unless /\n/'
    4da45be
    7134973

    In addition, any unrecognized string that has a % in it is interpreted as if it has tformat: in front of it. For example, these two are equivalent:

    $ git log -2 --pretty=tformat:%h 4da45bef
    $ git log -2 --pretty=%h 4da45bef
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