In Git, you can show the list of commits reachable from a specified commit while excluding commits reachable from another specified commit using the git log command with appropriate options.
Here’s the general syntax you will use:
git log <commit1> ^<commit2>
- <commit1> is the hash or reference of the commit from which you want to show reachable commits.
- <commit2> is the commit you want to exclude from the results.
For example, if you want to show commits reachable from commit1 but exclude those reachable from commit2, you can run:
git log <commit1> ^<commit2>
Example:
Suppose you have two commit hashes: abc123 and def456. To see the commits reachable from abc123 but not from def456, you would run:
git log abc123 ^def456
Additional Options:
You can also add formatting or additional options to the git log command to refine the output, for example:
- --oneline for a brief summary.
- --decorate to show branch and tag names.
- --graph to visualize the commit history.
Combining these options might look like this:
git log --oneline --graph abc123 ^def456
Note:
- The caret ^ operator denotes "exclude" in this context.
- You can also use the .. range notation, which can provide similar functionality:
git log abc123 --not def456
This will produce the same result, showing commits reachable from abc123 but not reachable from def456.