Displaying branch history in Git

I desired to have an easy branch log today. The following alias commands makes this easier. These go under the [alias] section in the .gitconfig file you are using in your repository.

latest = "!f() { echo "Latest \"${1:-11}\" commits accross all branches:"; git log  --abbrev-commit --date=relative --branches --all --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset%n' -n ${1:-11};  } ; f"
logbranch = "!f() { echo "Latest \"${1:-11}\" commits in current branch against master:"; git log master..${1:git branch}  --abbrev-commit --date=relative  --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(white blue bold)<%an>%Creset%n' -n ${1:-11};  } ; f"

git logbranch will display only the latest commit for the specified branch or defaulting to the current branch, defaulting to last 11 commits using a shell function. Note that we compare against the master branch. And we get the following sample output:

Closing branches in Git

Git unlike Mercurial has no builtin support for closing branches. This leads to a proliferation of branches and running git branch -a to view remote branches or git branch will show ever more branches. Actually, closing a branch in Git can be supported through the use of tags. We decide to keep the tag for future use, so that we can use it to check out a new branch from this tag. Another way would of course be to just delete a brach local and/or remote, but that is not the same as closing a branch. Closing a branch in Mercurial still makes it possible to reopen it again for later work. Anyways, in this article, I will show two aliases which can be used to close a branch, either both local and remote or just remote. Put the following into the [alias] section of your .gitConfig file:

closebranch = "!w() { echo Attempting to close local and remote branch: $1 Processing...; echo Checking the branch $1 out..; git checkout $1; echo Trying to create a new tag archive/$1; git tag archive/\"$1\"; git push origin archive/\"$1\"; echo Deleting the local branch $1; git branch -d $1;  echo Deleting the remote branch $1; git push origin --delete $1; echo Done. To restore the closed branch later, enter: git checkout -b MyNewBranch archive/\"$1\"; }; w"

closebranchpassive = "!w() { echo Attempting to close local and remote branch: $1 Processing...; echo Checking the branch $1 out..; git checkout $1; echo Trying to create a new tag archive/$1; git tag archive/\"$1\"; git push origin archive/$1; echo Deleting the local branch $1;   echo Deleting the remote branch $1;  echo Done. To restore the closed branch later, enter: git checkout -b MyNewBranch archive/\"$1\"; }; w"

closeremotebranch =  "!w() { echo Attempting to close remote branch: $1 Processing...; echo Checking the branch $1 out..; git checkout $1;  echo Trying to create a new tag archive/$1; git tag archive/\"$1\"; git push origin archive/\"$1\"; echo Deleting the remote branch $1; git push origin --delete $1; echo Done. To restore the closed branch later, enter: git checkout -b MyNewBranch archive/\"$1\"; }; w"

What we do here is the following:

• Check out the branch to close
• Tag this branch as archive/branchname
• Important - push the tag the remote e.g. origin in the provided aliased commands above
• (Delete the local branch)
• Delete the remote branch
• Display a friendly output message how to restore the branch later through a tag

What we use here is a shell function in each alias. This allows us to do multiple commands in Git through a simple aliased command. Say you want to close a local and remote branch called MyBranchToBeClosed. Just enter: git closebranch MyBranchToBeClosed If you just want to close the remote branch and keep the local one, enter: git closeremotebranch MyBranchToBeClosed To restore the branch MyBranchToBeClosed (which now is actually closed!) later, just enter: git checkout -b MyRestoredBranch archive/MyBranchToBeClosed This lets you keep old branch around as tags and not proliferate the branch listings. We however have moved the branch(es) over to tags prefixed with archive/ I wish Git was simpler to use sometimes so we did not have to use such hacks, closing branches should be easy.