git show-branch [-a|--all] [-r|--remotes] [--topo-order | --date-order] [--current] [--color[=<when>] | --no-color] [--sparse] [--more=<n> | --list | --independent | --merge-base] [--no-name | --sha1-name] [--topics] [<rev> | <glob>]...
git show-branch (-g|--reflog)[=<n>[,<base>]] [--list] [<ref>]
Shows the commit ancestry graph starting from the commits named with <rev>s or <globs>s (or all refs under refs/heads and/or refs/tags) semi-visually.
It cannot show more than 29 branches and commits at a time.
It uses showbranch.default multi-valued configuration items if no <rev> nor <glob> is given on the command line.
<rev>
<glob>
-r, --remotes
-a, --all
--current
--topo-order
--date-order
--sparse
--more=<n>
--list
--merge-base
--independent
--no-name
--sha1-name
--topics
-g, --reflog[=<n>[,<base>]] [<ref>]
--color[=<when>]
--no-color
Note that --more, --list, --independent and --merge-base options are mutually exclusive.
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. Merge commits are denoted by a - sign. Each commit shows a short name that can be used as an extended 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'". The "fixes" branch adds one commit "Introduce "reset type" flag to "git reset"". The "mhf" branch adds many other commits. The current branch is "master".
If you keep your primary branches immediately under refs/heads, and topic branches in subdirectories of it, having the following in the configuration file may help:
[showbranch] default = --topo-order default = heads/*
With this, git show-branch without extra parameters would show only the primary branches. In addition, if you happen to be on your topic branch, it is shown as well.
$ git show-branch --reflog="10,1 hour ago" --list master
shows 10 reflog entries going back from the tip as of 1 hour ago. Without --list, the output also shows how these tips are topologically related with each other.
Written by Junio C Hamano <m[blue]gitster@pobox.comm[][1]>
Documentation by Junio C Hamano.
Part of the git(1) suite