Version history tips and tricks

Introduction to Git

George Boorman

Curriculum Manager, DataCamp

Projects grow!

Larger project = more commits = larger output

Diagram of eight commits showing their hashes and log messages

Restricting the number of commits

We can restrict the number of commits displayed using -:
Restrict to the 3 most recent commits
```
git log -3
```

Restricting the file

To only look at the commit history of one file:

git log report.md

Combining techniques

cd data

git log -2 mental_health_survey.csv

git log output

commit f35b9487c063d3facc853c1789b0b77087a859fa
Author: Rep Loop <[email protected]>
Date:   Fri Jul 26 15:14:32 2024 +0000

    Add two new participants' data.

commit 7f71eadea60bf38f53c8696d23f8314d85342aaf
Author: Rep Loop <[email protected]>
Date:   Fri Jul 19  09:58:21 2024 +0000

    Adding fresh data for the survey.

Customizing the date range

Restrict git log by date:

git log --since='Month Day Year'

Commits since 2nd April 2024:

git log --since='Apr 2 2024'

Commits between 2nd and 11th April:

git log --since='Apr 2 2024' --until='Apr 11 2024'

Acceptable filter formats

Natural language

"2 weeks ago"
"3 months ago"
"yesterday"

Date format

"07-15-2024"
- Recommend ISO Format 6801 "YYYY-MM-DD"
- Check system settings for compatibility, e.g., 12-06-2024 could be 6th Dec or 12th June!
"15 Jul 2024" or "15 July 2024"
- Invalid: "15 Jul, 2024"

¹ https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html

Finding a particular commit

git log

Only need the first 8-10 characters of the hash

git show c27fa856

¹ https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Revision-Selection#Short-SHA-1

git show output

git show output displaying the git log output at the top and the git diff output underneath, with the incorrect data entry at the bottom

Let's practice!

Introduction to Git