View changes of file in staging

git diff --staged <filename>

View details of commits in local repo

git log <remote>/<branch>..HEAD eg: git log origin/master..HEAD

Find all commits for a file

git log --follow <filename>

Git Diff explained in picture

Although this basic, we have relied on GUIs to understand our diffs. Using the CLI’s diff would be foreign to us. Found a really good image to help us.

Recollect your steps of previous commits you have worked on

Wrote alot of commits and so have others? Can’t remember which one you wrote yesterday? Need to find it?

git reflog

Each time a branch is updated to point to a new reference, an entry is written in the reflog to say where you were.

Here’s a good blog to understand better.

Show files involved in the commit

git log --name-status <commit>

Show all commits in a range

git log <previous>..<tillnow>

you can use this for:

1. tag names v1.1..v1.2
2. commit hashes 0de96..56313
3. branches feature\me..origin\feature\me

See recently used branches by the last commit (i.e. branches ordered by most recent commit)

git for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(HEAD) %(color:cyan)%(refname:short)%(color:reset) - %(color:red)%(objectname:short)%(color:reset) %(contents:subject) | %(color:magenta)%(authorname) (%(color:green)%(committerdate:relative)%(color:reset))'

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/q/5188320/1391963

best to make this into an alias

git config --global alias.recent for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(HEAD) %(color:cyan)%(refname:short)%(color:reset) - %(color:red)%(objectname:short)%(color:reset) %(contents:subject) | %(color:magenta)%(authorname) (%(color:green)%(committerdate:relative)%(color:reset))'

Change the colors as you wish.

Find commits with filter

git log --grep='<pattern>' limits to commits whose log message has a line that matches