[git] Command to get latest Git commit hash from a branch

How can I check with the command line the latest commit hash of a particular Git branch?

git log -n 1 [branch_name]

branch_name (may be remote or local branch) is optional. Without branch_name, it will show the latest commit on the current branch.

For example:

git log -n 1
git log -n 1 origin/master
git log -n 1 some_local_branch

git log -n 1 --pretty=format:"%H"  #To get only hash value of commit

Note that when using "git log -n 1 [branch_name]" option. -n returns only one line of log but order in which this is returned is not guaranteed. Following is extract from git-log man page

.....
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Commit Limiting

Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the special notations explained in the     description, additional commit limiting may be applied.

Using more options generally further limits the output (e.g. --since=<date1> limits to commits newer than <date1>, and using it with --grep=<pattern> further limits to commits whose log message has a line that matches <pattern>), unless otherwise noted.

Note that these are applied before commit ordering and formatting options, such as --reverse.

-<number>
-n <number>
.....
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Try using git log -n 1 after doing a git checkout branchname. This shows the commit hash, author, date and commit message for the latest commit.

Perform a git pull origin/branchname first, to make sure your local repo matches upstream.

If perhaps you would only like to see a list of the commits your local branch is behind on the remote branch do this:

git fetch origin
git cherry localbranch remotebranch

This will list all the hashes of the commits that you have not yet merged into your local branch.

In a comment you wrote

i want to show that there is a difference in local and github repo

As already mentioned in another answer, you should do a git fetch origin first. Then, if the remote is ahead of your current branch, you can list all commits between your local branch and the remote with

git log master..origin/master --stat

If your local branch is ahead:

git log origin/master..master --stat

--stat shows a list of changed files as well.

If you want to explicitly list the additions and deletions, use git diff:

git diff master origin/master

you can git fetch nameofremoterepo, then git log

and personally, I alias gitlog to git log --graph --oneline --pretty --decorate --all. try out and see if it fits you