[git] Print commit message of a given commit in git

I need a plumbing command to print the commit message of one given commit - nothing more, nothing less.

Not plumbing, but I have these in my .gitconfig:

lsum = log -n 1 --pretty=format:'%s'
lmsg = log -n 1 --pretty=format:'%s%n%n%b'

That's "last summary" and "last message". You can provide a commit to get the summary or message of that commit. (I'm using 1.7.0.5 so don't have %B.)

git show is more a plumbing command than git log, and has the same formatting options:

git show -s --format=%B SHA1

I started to use

git show-branch --no-name <hash>

It seems to be faster than

git show -s --format=%s <hash>

Both give the same result

I actually wrote a small tool to see the status of all my repos. You can find it on github.

I use shortlog for this:

$ git shortlog master..
Username (3):
      Write something
      Add something
      Bump to 1.3.8 

This will give you a very compact list of all messages for any specified time.

git log --since=1/11/2011 --until=28/11/2011 --no-merges --format=%B > CHANGELOG.TXT