Clean-up output from "git show-branch" and document it.

[thirdparty/git.git] / Documentation / git-show-branch.txt

git-show-branch(1)
==================
v0.99.4, Aug 2005

NAME
----
git-show-branch - Show branches and their commits.

SYNOPSIS
--------
'git show-branch [--all] [--heads] [--tags] [--more=<n>] [--merge-base] <reference>...'

DESCRIPTION
-----------
Shows the head commits from the named <reference> (or all refs under
$GIT_DIR/refs/heads), and displays concise list of commit logs
to show their relationship semi-visually.

OPTIONS
-------
<reference>::
	Name of the reference under $GIT_DIR/refs/.

--all --heads --tags::
	Show all refs under $GIT_DIR/refs, $GIT_DIR/refs/heads,
	and $GIT_DIR/refs/tags, respectively.

--more=<n>::
	Usually the command stops output upon showing the commit
	that is the common ancestor of all the branches.  This
	flag tells the command to go <n> commits beyond that.

--merge-base::
	Instead of showing the commit list, just act like the
	'git-merge-base' command except that it can accept more
	than two heads.


OUTPUT
------
Given N <references>, the first N lines are the one-line
description from their commit message.  The branch head that is
pointed at by $GIT_DIR/HEAD is prefixed with an asterisk '*'
character while other heads are prefixed with a '!' character.

Following these N lines, one-line log for each commit is
displayed, indented N places.  If a commit is on the I-th
branch, the I-th indentation character shows a '+' sign;
otherwise it shows a space.  Each commit shows a short name that
can be used as an exended SHA1 to name that commit.

The following example shows three branches, "master", "fixes"
and "mhf":

------------------------------------------------
$ git show-branch master fixes mhf
! [master] Add 'git show-branch'.
 ! [fixes] Introduce "reset type" flag to "git reset"
  ! [mhf] Allow "+remote:local" refspec to cause --force when fetching.
---
  + [mhf] Allow "+remote:local" refspec to cause --force when fetching.
  + [mhf~1] Use git-octopus when pulling more than one heads.
 +  [fixes] Introduce "reset type" flag to "git reset"
  + [mhf~2] "git fetch --force".
  + [mhf~3] Use .git/remote/origin, not .git/branches/origin.
  + [mhf~4] Make "git pull" and "git fetch" default to origin
  + [mhf~5] Infamous 'octopus merge'
  + [mhf~6] Retire git-parse-remote.
  + [mhf~7] Multi-head fetch.
  + [mhf~8] Start adding the $GIT_DIR/remotes/ support.
+++ [master] Add 'git show-branch'.
------------------------------------------------

These three branches all forked from a common commit, [master],
whose commit message is "Add 'git show-branch'.  "fixes" branch
adds one commit 'Introduce "reset type"'.  "mhf" branch has many
other commits.

When only one head is given, the output format changes slightly
to conserve space.  The '+' sign to show which commit is
reachable from which head and the first N lines to show the list
of heads being displayed are both meaningless so they are
omitted.  Also the label given to each commit does not repeat
the name of the branch because it is obvious.

------------------------------------------------
$ git show-branch --more=4 master
[master] Add 'git show-branch'.
[~1] Add a new extended SHA1 syntax <name>~<num>
[~2] Fix "git-diff-script A B"
[~3] git-ls-files: generalized pathspecs
[~4] Make "git-ls-files" work in subdirectories
------------------------------------------------

Author
------
Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>


Documentation
--------------
Documentation by Junio C Hamano.


GIT
---
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