threads / discuss / 15888

View remote logs?

Subject: View remote logs?

## tl;dr

3 messages between Oct 14, 2008 and Oct 14, 2008.

replies: 2people: 3as markdown or json

Todd A. Jacobs· Oct 14, 2008, 07:19 UTC · lore

I've Googled around, and tried some experiments with likely-looking tools like git log, git diff, and git ls-remote, but they only seem to operate on the local repository. In particular, there doesn't seem to be an obvious way to view the commit logs on a remote repository without pulling it first.

On an intuitive level, it seems like "git log origin" would allow me to see what someone has committed to a remote repository so I can decide whether it's something I want to pull. Even something like "git diff HEAD origin" would let me know if there were changes I might want to pull before doing so.

Am I missing something obvious? Is it possible to use the CLI to view remote logs, or is the only choice to pull everything?

-- 
"Oh, look: rocks!"
	-- Doctor Who, "Destiny of the Daleks"

Jeff King· Oct 14, 2008, 08:10 UTC · re: Todd A. Jacobs · lore

Re: View remote logs?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 12:19:07AM -0700, Todd A. Jacobs wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> I've Googled around, and tried some experiments with likely-looking
> tools like git log, git diff, and git ls-remote, but they only seem to
> operate on the local repository. In particular, there doesn't seem to be
> an obvious way to view the commit logs on a remote repository without
> pulling it first.

Remember that pull is really "fetch + merge". So you can do just the fetch part without affecting your local branches.

> On an intuitive level, it seems like "git log origin" would allow me to
> see what someone has committed to a remote repository so I can decide

It does. It just uses the remote tracking branch for "origin" instead of contacting the remote.

> whether it's something I want to pull. Even something like "git diff
> HEAD origin" would let me know if there were changes I might want to
> pull before doing so.

And that works, too. Once fetched, you can use "origin" as you would any other ref.

-Peff

Michael J Gruber· Oct 14, 2008, 08:21 UTC · re: Todd A. Jacobs · lore

Re: View remote logs?

Todd A. Jacobs venit, vidit, dixit 14.10.2008 09:19:

Show 14 quoted lines

> I've Googled around, and tried some experiments with likely-looking
> tools like git log, git diff, and git ls-remote, but they only seem to
> operate on the local repository. In particular, there doesn't seem to be
> an obvious way to view the commit logs on a remote repository without
> pulling it first.
> 
> On an intuitive level, it seems like "git log origin" would allow me to
> see what someone has committed to a remote repository so I can decide
> whether it's something I want to pull. Even something like "git diff
> HEAD origin" would let me know if there were changes I might want to
> pull before doing so.
> 
> Am I missing something obvious? Is it possible to use the CLI to view
> remote logs, or is the only choice to pull everything?

You can always fetch (rather than pull) and then decide whether to pull (i.e. merge or rebase FETCH_HEAD) or not.

The problem with "remote log" is that log can show diffstats, full diffs etc, so that it would need all new objects anyways.

If you want to avoid fetching new objects the only way is to run git log etc. on the remote side. You can do this with ssh, but the other transports (git:, http:) don't support this.

Michael