Search in git

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Here’s a useful trio to know about to help you search things in git:

  1. git show <commit>

  2. git log --grep='<regexp>'

  3. git grep '<regexp>' [commit]

1. git show <commit>

Show a specific commit and it’s diff:

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git show
# shows the latest commit
git show <commit>
# shows an specific <commit>
git show v1.2
# shows commit tagged with v1.2

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2. git log --grep='<regexp>'

Search through the commit messages:

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git grep 'TODO'
# search the repository for the "TODO" string
git grep 'TODO' $(git rev-list --all)
# search the whole history for "TODO" string

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And if you find an occurrence of the regexp in a specific commit and you want to browse the repository in that point in time, you can use git checkout for that.