To display the author and date of each line in a file's history in a version control system like Git, you can use the git blame command. This command shows who changed each line in a file and when it was changed.
Here’s how to use it:
1. Open your terminal or command prompt.
2. Navigate to the repository that contains your file.
3. Run the following command:
git blame <filename>
Replace <filename> with the name of your file.
The output will show each line of the file along with the commit hash, the author’s name, and the date of the last change to that line.
For example, the output might look something like this:
b87f1e2d (Alice 2023-01-15 14:25:36 +0100 1) Line 1 content
c92e4f5b (Bob 2023-01-20 11:12:45 +0100 2) Line 2 content
a7c3b7e8 (Alice 2023-02-01 09:10:00 +0100 3) Line 3 content
In this output:
- The first column is the commit hash.
- The second column is the author of the change.
- The date and time of the change are shown next.
- The last column is the content of the line.
If you want to include a more readable date format or customize the output further, you can use various options with git blame. Here are some useful flags:
- -C and -M: These options detect copy and move operations.
- Formatting using --date-format=<format>: You can specify how dates should be displayed.
For example:
git blame --date=short <filename>
This will give you a shortened date format in the output. Always refer to the git blame documentation for more options to tailor the command to your needs.