View the change history of a file using Git versioning

Question

How can I view the change history of an individual file in Git  complete details with what has changed   I have got as far as    git log --  filename    which shows me the commit history of the file  but how do I get at the content of each of the file changes   I m trying to make the transition from MS SourceSafe and that used to be a simple right-click   show history

User · Answer

git whatchanged -p filename is also equivalent to git log -p filename in this case   You can also see when a specific line of code inside a file was changed with git blame filename  This will print out a short commit id  the author  timestamp  and complete line of code for every line in the file   This is very useful after you ve found a bug and you want to know when it was introduced  or who s fault it was

User · Answer

You can use   git log -p filename   to let git generate the patches for each log entry    See  git help log   for more options - it can actually do a lot of nice things    To get just the diff for a specific commit you can   git show HEAD    or any other revision by identifier  Or use   gitk   to browse the changes visually

User · Answer

git whatchanged -p filename is also equivalent to git log -p filename in this case   You can also see when a specific line of code inside a file was changed with git blame filename  This will print out a short commit id  the author  timestamp  and complete line of code for every line in the file   This is very useful after you ve found a bug and you want to know when it was introduced  or who s fault it was

User · Answer

With the excellent Git Extensions  you go to a point in the history where the file still existed  if it have been deleted  otherwise just go to HEAD   switch to the File tree tab  right-click on the file and choose File history   By default  it follows the file through the renames  and the Blame tab allows to see the name at a given revision   It has some minor gotchas  like showing fatal  Not a valid object name in the View tab when clicking on the deletion revision  but I can live with that   -

User · Answer

SourceTree users If you use SourceTree to visualize your repository  it s free and quite good  you can right click a file and select Log Selected  The display  below  is much friendlier than gitk and most the other options listed  Unfortunately  at this time  there is no easy way to launch this view from the command line     SourceTree s CLI currently just opens repos

User · Answer

If you prefer to stay text-based  you may want to use tig   Quick Install    apt-get    apt-get install tig   Homebrew  OS X     brew install tig   Use it to view history on a single file  tig  filename  Or browse detailed repo history  tig  Similar to gitk but text based  Supports colors in terminal

User · Answer

git log --follow -p -- path-to-file  This will show the entire history of the file  including history beyond renames and with diffs for each change    In other words  if the file named bar was once named foo  then git log -p bar  without the --follow option  will only show the file s history up to the point where it was renamed -- it won t show the file s history when it was known as foo  Using git log --follow -p bar will show the file s entire history  including any changes to the file when it was known as foo  The -p option ensures that diffs are included for each change

User · Answer

git diff -U  lt filename gt  give you a unified diff    It should be colored on red and green  If it s not  run  git config color ui auto first

User · Answer

For a graphical view I d use gitk  gitk  filename   or to follow filename past renames gitk --follow  filename

User · Answer

Add this alias to your  gitconfig    alias      lg   log --all --graph --pretty format   Cred h Creset - C yellow  d Creset  s  Cgreen  cr   C bold blue  lt  an gt  Creset  n--abbrev-commit --date relative   And use the command like this    gt  git lg  gt  git lg -- filename   The output will look almost exactly the same as the gitk output  Enjoy

User · Answer

You can use vscode with GitLens  it s a very powerful tool  After installed GitLens  go to GitLens tab  select FILE HISTORY and you can browse it

User · Answer

Or    gitx --  lt path to filename gt   if you re using gitx

User · Answer

Lately I discovered tig and found it very useful  There are some cases I d wish it does A or B but most of the time it s rather neat   For your case  tig  lt filename gt  might be what you re looking for   http   jonas nitro dk tig

User · Answer

You can use   git log -p filename   to let git generate the patches for each log entry    See  git help log   for more options - it can actually do a lot of nice things    To get just the diff for a specific commit you can   git show HEAD    or any other revision by identifier  Or use   gitk   to browse the changes visually

User · Answer

You can also try this which lists the commits that has changed a specific part of a file  Implemented in Git 1 8 4    Result returned would be the list of commits that modified this particular part  Command    git log --pretty short -u -L  lt upperLimit gt   lt lowerLimit gt   lt path to filename gt    where upperLimit is the start line number and lowerLimit is the ending line number of the file   More details at https   www techpurohit com list-some-useful-git-commands

User · Answer

If you re using the git GUI  on Windows  under the Repository menu you can use  Visualize master s History    Highlight a commit in the top pane and a file in the lower right and you ll see the diff for that commit in the lower left

User · Answer

Or    gitx --  lt path to filename gt   if you re using gitx

User · Answer

In Sourcetree UI  https   www sourcetreeapp com    you can find history of a file by selecting  Log Selected  option in right click context menu   It would show the history of all the commits

User · Answer

git log --follow -p -- path-to-file  This will show the entire history of the file  including history beyond renames and with diffs for each change    In other words  if the file named bar was once named foo  then git log -p bar  without the --follow option  will only show the file s history up to the point where it was renamed -- it won t show the file s history when it was known as foo  Using git log --follow -p bar will show the file s entire history  including any changes to the file when it was known as foo  The -p option ensures that diffs are included for each change

User · Answer

I wrote git-playback for this exact purpose  pip install git-playback git playback  filename    This has the benefit of both displaying the results in the command line  like git log -p  while also letting you step through each commit using the arrow keys  like gitk

User · Answer

If you are using eclipse with the git plugin  it has an excellent comparison view with history  Right click the file and select  compare with     history

User · Answer

Summary of other answers after reading through them and playing a bit   The usual command line command would be   git log --follow --all -p dir file c   But you can also use either gitk  gui  or tig  text-ui  to give much more human-readable ways of looking at it   gitk --follow --all -p dir file c  tig --follow --all -p dir file c   Under debian ubuntu  the install command for these lovely tools is as expected    sudo apt-get install gitk tig   And I m currently using   alias gdf  gitk --follow --all -p    so that I can just type gdf dir to get a focussed history of everything in subdirectory dir

User · Answer

git whatchanged -p filename is also equivalent to git log -p filename in this case   You can also see when a specific line of code inside a file was changed with git blame filename  This will print out a short commit id  the author  timestamp  and complete line of code for every line in the file   This is very useful after you ve found a bug and you want to know when it was introduced  or who s fault it was

User · Answer

Summary of other answers after reading through them and playing a bit   The usual command line command would be   git log --follow --all -p dir file c   But you can also use either gitk  gui  or tig  text-ui  to give much more human-readable ways of looking at it   gitk --follow --all -p dir file c  tig --follow --all -p dir file c   Under debian ubuntu  the install command for these lovely tools is as expected    sudo apt-get install gitk tig   And I m currently using   alias gdf  gitk --follow --all -p    so that I can just type gdf dir to get a focussed history of everything in subdirectory dir

User · Answer

SourceTree users If you use SourceTree to visualize your repository  it s free and quite good  you can right click a file and select Log Selected  The display  below  is much friendlier than gitk and most the other options listed  Unfortunately  at this time  there is no easy way to launch this view from the command line     SourceTree s CLI currently just opens repos

User · Answer

I wrote git-playback for this exact purpose  pip install git-playback git playback  filename    This has the benefit of both displaying the results in the command line  like git log -p  while also letting you step through each commit using the arrow keys  like gitk

User · Answer

If you re using the git GUI  on Windows  under the Repository menu you can use  Visualize master s History    Highlight a commit in the top pane and a file in the lower right and you ll see the diff for that commit in the lower left

User · Answer

With the excellent Git Extensions  you go to a point in the history where the file still existed  if it have been deleted  otherwise just go to HEAD   switch to the File tree tab  right-click on the file and choose File history   By default  it follows the file through the renames  and the Blame tab allows to see the name at a given revision   It has some minor gotchas  like showing fatal  Not a valid object name in the View tab when clicking on the deletion revision  but I can live with that   -

User · Answer

If you re using the git GUI  on Windows  under the Repository menu you can use  Visualize master s History    Highlight a commit in the top pane and a file in the lower right and you ll see the diff for that commit in the lower left

User · Answer

I m probably about where the OP was when this started  looking for something simple that would let me use git difftool with vimdiff to review changes to files in my repo starting from a specific commit   I wasn t too happy with answers I was finding  so I threw this git incremental reporter  gitincrep  script together and it s been useful to me      usr bin env bash  STARTWITH    1 -   shift 1  DFILES           RunDiff             GIT1  1         GIT2  2         shift 2          if      git diff  GIT1  GIT2                  then                 git log   GIT1     GIT2                  git difftool --tool vimdiff  GIT1  GIT2              fi    OLDVERS    RUNDIFF     for NEWVERS in   git log --format format  h  --reverse  do         if     RUNDIFF            then                 RunDiff  OLDVERS  NEWVERS    DFILES              elif     OLDVERS            then                 if     NEWVERS       STARTWITH    NEWVERS                      then                         RUNDIFF true                         RunDiff  OLDVERS  NEWVERS    DFILES                      fi         fi         OLDVERS  NEWVERS done    Called with no args  this will start from the beginning of the repo history  otherwise it will start with whatever abbreviated commit hash you provide and proceed to the present - you can ctrl-C at any time to exit   Any args after the first will limit the difference reports to include only the files listed among those args  which I think is what the OP wanted  and I d recommend for all but tiny projects    If you re checking changes to specific files and want to start from the beginning  you ll need to provide an empty string for arg1   If you re not a vim user  you can replace vimdiff with your favorite diff tool   Behavior is to output the commit comments when relevant changes are found and start offering vimdiff runs for each changed file  that s git difftool behavior  but it works here    This approach is probably pretty naive  but looking through a lot of the solutions here and at a related post  many involved installing new tools on a system where I don t have admin access  with interfaces that had their own learning curve   The above script did what I wanted without dealing with any of that   I ll look into the many excellent suggestions here when I need something more sophisticated - but I think this is directly responsive to the OP

User · Answer

The answer I was looking for that wasn t in this thread is to see changes in files that I d staged for commit  i e   git diff --cached

User · Answer

If you use TortoiseGit you should be able to right click on the file and do TortoiseGit -- gt  Show Log  In the window that pops up  make sure     Show Whole Project  option is not checked   All Branches  option is checked

User · Answer

If you prefer to stay text-based  you may want to use tig   Quick Install    apt-get    apt-get install tig   Homebrew  OS X     brew install tig   Use it to view history on a single file  tig  filename  Or browse detailed repo history  tig  Similar to gitk but text based  Supports colors in terminal

User · Answer

SmartGit    In the menu enable to display unchanged files  View   Show unchanged files Right click the file and select  Log  or press  Ctrl-L

User · Answer

The answer I was looking for that wasn t in this thread is to see changes in files that I d staged for commit  i e   git diff --cached

User · Answer

You can use vscode with GitLens  it s a very powerful tool  After installed GitLens  go to GitLens tab  select FILE HISTORY and you can browse it

User · Answer

For a graphical view I d use gitk  gitk  filename   or to follow filename past renames gitk --follow  filename

User · Answer

To show what revision and author last modified each line of a file   git blame filename   or if you want to use the powerful blame GUI   git gui blame filename

User · Answer

Lately I discovered tig and found it very useful  There are some cases I d wish it does A or B but most of the time it s rather neat   For your case  tig  lt filename gt  might be what you re looking for   http   jonas nitro dk tig

User · Answer

You can also try this which lists the commits that has changed a specific part of a file  Implemented in Git 1 8 4    Result returned would be the list of commits that modified this particular part  Command    git log --pretty short -u -L  lt upperLimit gt   lt lowerLimit gt   lt path to filename gt    where upperLimit is the start line number and lowerLimit is the ending line number of the file   More details at https   www techpurohit com list-some-useful-git-commands

User · Answer

Add this alias to your  gitconfig    alias      lg   log --all --graph --pretty format   Cred h Creset - C yellow  d Creset  s  Cgreen  cr   C bold blue  lt  an gt  Creset  n--abbrev-commit --date relative   And use the command like this    gt  git lg  gt  git lg -- filename   The output will look almost exactly the same as the gitk output  Enjoy

User · Answer

If you want to see the whole history of a file  including on all other branches use   gitk --all  lt filename gt

User · Answer

git whatchanged -p filename is also equivalent to git log -p filename in this case   You can also see when a specific line of code inside a file was changed with git blame filename  This will print out a short commit id  the author  timestamp  and complete line of code for every line in the file   This is very useful after you ve found a bug and you want to know when it was introduced  or who s fault it was

User · Answer

If you want to see the whole history of a file  including on all other branches use   gitk --all  lt filename gt

User · Answer

I m probably about where the OP was when this started  looking for something simple that would let me use git difftool with vimdiff to review changes to files in my repo starting from a specific commit   I wasn t too happy with answers I was finding  so I threw this git incremental reporter  gitincrep  script together and it s been useful to me      usr bin env bash  STARTWITH    1 -   shift 1  DFILES           RunDiff             GIT1  1         GIT2  2         shift 2          if      git diff  GIT1  GIT2                  then                 git log   GIT1     GIT2                  git difftool --tool vimdiff  GIT1  GIT2              fi    OLDVERS    RUNDIFF     for NEWVERS in   git log --format format  h  --reverse  do         if     RUNDIFF            then                 RunDiff  OLDVERS  NEWVERS    DFILES              elif     OLDVERS            then                 if     NEWVERS       STARTWITH    NEWVERS                      then                         RUNDIFF true                         RunDiff  OLDVERS  NEWVERS    DFILES                      fi         fi         OLDVERS  NEWVERS done    Called with no args  this will start from the beginning of the repo history  otherwise it will start with whatever abbreviated commit hash you provide and proceed to the present - you can ctrl-C at any time to exit   Any args after the first will limit the difference reports to include only the files listed among those args  which I think is what the OP wanted  and I d recommend for all but tiny projects    If you re checking changes to specific files and want to start from the beginning  you ll need to provide an empty string for arg1   If you re not a vim user  you can replace vimdiff with your favorite diff tool   Behavior is to output the commit comments when relevant changes are found and start offering vimdiff runs for each changed file  that s git difftool behavior  but it works here    This approach is probably pretty naive  but looking through a lot of the solutions here and at a related post  many involved installing new tools on a system where I don t have admin access  with interfaces that had their own learning curve   The above script did what I wanted without dealing with any of that   I ll look into the many excellent suggestions here when I need something more sophisticated - but I think this is directly responsive to the OP

User · Answer

In Sourcetree UI  https   www sourcetreeapp com    you can find history of a file by selecting  Log Selected  option in right click context menu   It would show the history of all the commits

User · Answer

If you re using the git GUI  on Windows  under the Repository menu you can use  Visualize master s History    Highlight a commit in the top pane and a file in the lower right and you ll see the diff for that commit in the lower left

User · Answer

You can use   git log -p filename   to let git generate the patches for each log entry    See  git help log   for more options - it can actually do a lot of nice things    To get just the diff for a specific commit you can   git show HEAD    or any other revision by identifier  Or use   gitk   to browse the changes visually

User · Answer

If you use TortoiseGit you should be able to right click on the file and do TortoiseGit -- gt  Show Log  In the window that pops up  make sure     Show Whole Project  option is not checked   All Branches  option is checked

User · Answer

To show what revision and author last modified each line of a file   git blame filename   or if you want to use the powerful blame GUI   git gui blame filename

User · Answer

If you are using eclipse with the git plugin  it has an excellent comparison view with history  Right click the file and select  compare with     history

User · Answer

You can use   git log -p filename   to let git generate the patches for each log entry    See  git help log   for more options - it can actually do a lot of nice things    To get just the diff for a specific commit you can   git show HEAD    or any other revision by identifier  Or use   gitk   to browse the changes visually

User · Answer

SmartGit    In the menu enable to display unchanged files  View   Show unchanged files Right click the file and select  Log  or press  Ctrl-L

User · Answer

git diff -U  lt filename gt  give you a unified diff    It should be colored on red and green  If it s not  run  git config color ui auto first

[git] View the change history of a file using Git versioning

Examples related to git

Examples related to git-log