From: Konstantin Khomoutov Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 18:40:37 GMT Subject: Re: Specifying N revisions after the initial commit Message-ID: <20150922214037.b6b48059f051fcd4060a5a85@domain007.com> In-Reply-To: On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 14:32:19 -0400 Josh Boyer wrote: > Please CC me as I'm not subscribed. > > I was hoping someone could help me with the revision shorthand to get > the commit sha of a commit N commits after the initial commit. What happens if right after the initial commit, there have been five branches created -- with no common commits except for the initial one? That's the core limitation of the data model Git uses (and arguably any other DVCS system): all commits form a directed acyclic graph. The "directed" in that construct means that child commits contain a link to their parent commit (or commits) but not vice-versa. Hence, given any particular commit, you're able to trace all of its ancestry, but the reverse is not possible.