Git alias for printing recently-used branches | Hacker News Reader

Git alias for printing recently-used branches

ses4j.github.io

96 pointsses4j23 comments

I alias 'git recent' to:

    git branch --sort=-committerdate -v

It gives me the following output (first line for not actually included):

    [branch name]                                      [hash]  [commit message header]
    move-radio-and-checkbox-hints-up                   9dff690 Move the hints belonging to radios/checkboxes up
    update-rubocop                                     8cace1f Update rubocop and pry, fix some new offences
    fix-remaining-injected-content-placement           48dc51d Reorder elements of other inputs

Yes, my "see what the team is up to" git command is:

    git branch -a --sort=-committerdate

That's short enough for my taste not to have to alias, and it gives output more or less similar to GitHub's "Active branches" view.

I do the same thing for this slightly longer alias

    git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate --format='%(committerdate:short): %(refname:short)' refs/heads/

Including the dates is crucial; I'll frequently go in and clean up personal branches that are older than X months.

I've got one really close to this:

    git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(refname:short) %(committerdate:short) %(upstream:remoteref)' | column -t

This is much better as it’s portable and doesn’t cheat by assuming awk/grep/etc are available.

Honest question, what kind of environments are you working in where you don't / can't have these?

Windows (cmd/powershell).

It wouldn’t surprise me if windows cmd is the most common environment for git on command line, since windows is the most common OS among developers (and git-bash is terrible).

So many commenters here providing alternatives seem to miss the key differentiating feature: recently checked out vs. recently committed to. For me the former is immensely more useful as I may have gone to a branch to do something other than commit, and those are missed with the latter.

Anyway, I’ve had my own (far more involved) version of listing recently checked-out branches for years. It will also filter out the current branch and deleted branches, and has a rudimentary interactive selection.

Maybe someone will find it useful as I have.

https://github.com/amarshall/git-recent-branches

What about just `git reflog`? Then, you get to see recent branches _and_ you get additional context about what you were doing at the time.

Even better, `tig reflog`, which makes it easy to check out the content of a commit or the history of a branch in context with the reflog.

I shared this with a coworker, who discovered that it dumps information about branches that don't exist anymore. This comment's alternate command doesn't list deleted branches:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22797911

And for those wondering "deleted branches?", check the git-gc man page for gc.reflogexpire (default 90 days) and gc.reflogexpireunreachable (default 30 days).

Even better, show your local/remote branches in most-recent order and interactively pick the branch to switch to using fzf:

https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/f3ebd5ef2bc8a010357b574c02...

That's the way to go!

[alias] rb = for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate --format='%(refname:short)' refs/heads/ --count=10

To switch branches, I invoke this from a shell script and type a couple characters from a branch name

git checkout (git rb|fzf)

I alias `git ref-recent` to:

    git for-each-ref 
        --sort=-committerdate 
        --format='%(committerdate:short) %(refname:short) %(objectname:short) %(contents:subject)' 
        refs/heads/

The output shows the date, branch name, commit hash, and commit subject, such as:

    2020-04-06 master d8560f4 Add feature foo
    2020-03-28 fix-button 15f985d Fix button for menu
    2020-03-19 optimize-sort 3dbec4d Optimize sort algorithm

I put my aliases in GitAlias, which has many more: https://github.com/gitalias/gitalias

I made a small script that outputs local and/or remote branches color coded: https://i.imgur.com/QkmPhm0.png

https://github.com/bhaak/dotfiles/blob/master/git/git-overvi...

It has been so useful to me that I think I should extract it from my dotfiles repository and give it its own repository.

Or reimplement it in Rust as a introductory programming project.

I had idea to add something similar as tab completion to posh-git module for Powershell. Sadly it was not merged (is posh-git dead?) https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git/pull/641

I wonder if something similar can be done in bash? By default bash doesn't "cycle" through possible completion but just display the list. Still, I guess it would be usefull to display last used branches first.

It doesn't seem to be dead. There was a PR commit only a week ago. You probably should poke the author again.

Neat! This was a feature I requested in Fork[0], but wasn't sure such a thing was even possible.

[0] https://git-fork.com

I alias `gbv` to this which shows you commit hash, msg, ID, author, date with colors:

alias gbv="git for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(HEAD) %(color:yellow)%(refname:short)%(color:reset) - %(color:red)%(objec tname:short)%(color:reset) - %(contents:subject) - %(authorname) (%(color:green)%(committerdate:relative)%(color:reset))'"

I’ve got something similar, but it’s color coded and has columns with more info.

https://github.com/whalesalad/dotfiles/blob/master/zsh/git.z...

I use this: git for-each-ref --sort=authordate --format '%(authordate:iso) %(align:left,25)%(refname:short)%(end) %(subject)' refs/heads

The most recent branches will appear closest to your cursor (on the bottom).

Been using this snippet from Paul Irish for years: https://github.com/paulirish/git-recent

Another option:

    git log --all --author=`git config user.email` --oneline --decorate

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