# Replicating the default "git log" format with a format string. 4 messages from 2015-11-12 to 2015-11-13. Participants: Kannan Goundan, Jeff King, Jacob Keller. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/40781 ## Kannan Goundan, 2015-11-12 00:55 Subject: Replicating the default "git log" format with a format string. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/loom.20151112T011419-749%40post.gmane.org ``` For our workflow, author dates aren't very useful. I'm looking for a way to configure Git so that "git log" shows commit dates instead of author dates. "--pretty=fuller" gets me almost what I want, but I'd like to avoid the extra two lines if possible. I tried achieving this by putting a custom format string in ~/.gitconfig: [format] pretty = "%C(auto,yellow)commit %C(auto)%H\nAuthor: %an <%ae>\nDate: %cd\n\n%w(0,4,4)%B" This works pretty well, but has a few corner cases. When you do "git log --decorate", the default format decorates commits with ref names. I can add "%d" to my format string, but then the ref names show up all the time, even without "--decorate". The "--walk-reflogs" option presents a similar problem. The %g* placeholders all become empty strings when "--walk-reflogs" isn't present, which is sort of what I want, but it leaves extra blank lines in the output. Is it possible to exactly replicate the default "git log" format with a format string? ``` ## Jeff King, 2015-11-13 05:38 Subject: Re: Replicating the default "git log" format with a format string. Message-ID: <20151113053800.GE29708@sigill.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20151113053800.GE29708%40sigill.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: ``` On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 12:55:53AM +0000, Kannan Goundan wrote: > For our workflow, author dates aren't very useful. I'm looking for a way to > configure Git so that "git log" shows commit dates instead of author dates. > "--pretty=fuller" gets me almost what I want, but I'd like to avoid the > extra two lines if possible. > > I tried achieving this by putting a custom format string in ~/.gitconfig: > > [format] > pretty = "%C(auto,yellow)commit %C(auto)%H\nAuthor: %an <%ae>\nDate: > %cd\n\n%w(0,4,4)%B" > > This works pretty well, but has a few corner cases. When you do "git log > --decorate", the default format decorates commits with ref names. I can add > "%d" to my format string, but then the ref names show up all the time, even > without "--decorate". > > The "--walk-reflogs" option presents a similar problem. The %g* > placeholders all become empty strings when "--walk-reflogs" isn't present, > which is sort of what I want, but it leaves extra blank lines in the output. > > Is it possible to exactly replicate the default "git log" format with a > format string? Sadly, no, I don't think it is possible with the current format specifiers. It would be nice if it was, though. -Peff ``` ## Jacob Keller, 2015-11-13 21:41 Subject: Re: Replicating the default "git log" format with a format string. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CA%2BP7%2Bxro%3DnNfzO6Q6-kGe6C%3DvJp-z_svd229kRZdf5QjQ%2BDi8g%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: <20151113053800.GE29708@sigill.intra.peff.net> ``` On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 9:38 PM, Jeff King wrote: >> Is it possible to exactly replicate the default "git log" format with a >> format string? > > Sadly, no, I don't think it is possible with the current format > specifiers. It would be nice if it was, though. > > -Peff > -- Isn't this something that might be obtainable using the new ref-filter work being done? Regards, Jake ``` ## Jeff King, 2015-11-13 21:52 Subject: Re: Replicating the default "git log" format with a format string. Message-ID: <20151113215246.GA14318@sigill.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20151113215246.GA14318%40sigill.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: ``` On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 01:41:23PM -0800, Jacob Keller wrote: > On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 9:38 PM, Jeff King wrote: > >> Is it possible to exactly replicate the default "git log" format with a > >> format string? > > > > Sadly, no, I don't think it is possible with the current format > > specifiers. It would be nice if it was, though. > > Isn't this something that might be obtainable using the new ref-filter > work being done? It moves in the right direction, but it isn't enough. I don't recall the specifics, but I think it has conditional placeholders for things like "if this is non-empty print it". But there are still some problems: - the ref-filter formatting isn't unified with the commit pretty-printer formatting. So this wouldn't help for a traversal, anyway. - the decoration thing needs a new placeholder. "%d" means "always show the decoration", but the OP really wants "show the decoration if the user asked for decorations, and empty otherwise". -Peff ```