# Usage of git whatchanged 4 messages from 2025-09-14 to 2025-09-14. Participants: Bjoern Bastian, Kristoffer Haugsbakk. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/64148 ## Bjoern Bastian, 2025-09-14 12:48 Subject: Usage of git whatchanged Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/aMa5kSQVlhVX7Iii%40eismeer ``` Hello, I still use 'git whatchanged' that has been available for a long time and though being longer than 'git log --raw' is much quicker to type, as 'git wh' is already sufficient for syntax completion. Obviously, for this reason I won't use it with the '--i-still-use-this' option. Best regards, Björn Bastian -- Physicist Wilhelm Ostwald Institute for Physical Chemistry, Leizig, Germany ``` ## Kristoffer Haugsbakk, 2025-09-14 13:10 Subject: Re: Usage of git whatchanged Message-ID: <7897d2d0-5564-4514-ab3b-7310b626f4c3@app.fastmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7897d2d0-5564-4514-ab3b-7310b626f4c3%40app.fastmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` Hi On Sun, Sep 14, 2025, at 14:48, Bjoern Bastian wrote: > I still use 'git whatchanged' that has been available for a long time > and though being longer than 'git log --raw' is much quicker to type, > as 'git wh' is already sufficient for syntax completion. Obviously, > for this reason I won't use it with the '--i-still-use-this' option. `git log --raw --no-merged` is the closest equivalent. What if you made a `wh` alias? wh = log --raw --no-merged -- Kristoffer Haugsbakk ``` ## Kristoffer Haugsbakk, 2025-09-14 17:58 Subject: Re: Usage of git whatchanged Message-ID: <8637f911-6887-41d5-b9af-cd2376376461@app.fastmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/8637f911-6887-41d5-b9af-cd2376376461%40app.fastmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` On Sun, Sep 14, 2025, at 15:52, Bjoern Bastian wrote: > Hi Kristoffer, > > I simply followed the invitation printed upon `git whatchanged` to > join in giving feedback from those who frequently use the command. > > I did not expect a thoughtful reply, so thank you very much for it! > >> `git log --raw --no-merged` is the closest equivalent. > > Thanks for pointing this out, true (actually `--no-merges`). Yep. > >> What if you made a `wh` alias? >> >> wh = log --raw --no-merges > > Sure an alias will be the next obvious workaround. With bash I need to > include `git ` though and just type `wh` on the command line which is > okay. To get `git wh` I could maybe modify the bash completion. You can also make a Git alias. git config set --global alias.wh 'log --raw --no-merges' > One can live without, but the statement "whatchanged is not even shorter > to type than log --raw." on https://git-scm.com/docs/git-whatchanged is > a weak one I have a proposal to remove it. > that misses obvious use cases of `whatchanged`. The thing with git-whatchanged is that it uses the same underlying machinery as git-log. So there’s nothing that git-whatchanged can do that git-log cannot do. ... and I guess vice versa. But historically git-log ended up as the new-and-better replacement (according to the devs) with git-whatchanged being kept around for people who was used to typing it. -- Kristoffer Haugsbakk ``` ## Kristoffer Haugsbakk, 2025-09-14 19:44 Subject: Re: Usage of git whatchanged Message-ID: <9bcd2f6e-8646-4b93-b2b2-fa1ccac5442b@app.fastmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/9bcd2f6e-8646-4b93-b2b2-fa1ccac5442b%40app.fastmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` On Sun, Sep 14, 2025, at 21:34, Bjoern Bastian wrote: > Hi Kristoffer, > >> You can also make a Git alias. >> >> git config set --global alias.wh 'log --raw --no-merges' > > neat, thank you, I never noticed the Git aliases. I'll do that. > >> > One can live without, but the statement "whatchanged is not even shorter >> > to type than log --raw." on https://git-scm.com/docs/git-whatchanged is >> > a weak one >> >> I have a proposal to remove it. > > Makes sense to me. > >> > that misses obvious use cases of `whatchanged`. >> >> The thing with git-whatchanged is that it uses the same underlying >> machinery as git-log. So there’s nothing that git-whatchanged can do >> that git-log cannot do. >> >> ... and I guess vice versa. But historically git-log ended up as the >> new-and-better replacement (according to the devs) with git-whatchanged >> being kept around for people who was used to typing it. > > Knowing Git aliases, there is actually no reason to keep `whatchanged`. > Without the idea to enforce `--i-still-use-this` in the transition time, > this would allow users to continue with their habits if they like to. Sure, you can use something like that `wh` alias. But note that you cannot make an alias like this named simply `whatchanged` (the same name as the command): git config set --global alias.whatchanged 'log --raw --no-merges' (in order to continue with the same habits exactly, verbatim) Because you cannot currently make an alias that has the same name as a command like this one. But it looks like that restriction will be lifted for deprecated commands in a future version. ```