Does git log --branches work?

Question

I can't seem to get git log --branches to correctly filter its output. It seems as if Git ignores it.

For example, the head of git log --graph --all --decorate, prints:

* commit 3ae0d17538f787bdde68f37f6644ffe9652d8dc1 (HEAD, feature/branch-ignore) | Author: Chris Lewis <[email protected]> | Date:   Mon Mar 14 17:39:56 2011 -0700 |  |     Ignore merge commits, as they're going to be duplicating events |   * commit 770534e9d77acb03eaf842440c879aec1c5b5500 | Author: Chris Lewis <[email protected]> | Date:   Tue Mar 8 14:39:40 2011 -0800 |  |     Removed another remote branch check |  

Let's say I want to filter by master, which should mean these commits are ignored. The head of git log --graph --all --decorate --branches=master, is also:

* commit 3ae0d17538f787bdde68f37f6644ffe9652d8dc1 (HEAD, feature/branch-ignore) | Author: Chris Lewis <[email protected]> | Date:   Mon Mar 14 17:39:56 2011 -0700 |  |     Ignore merge commits, as they're going to be duplicating events |   * commit 770534e9d77acb03eaf842440c879aec1c5b5500 | Author: Chris Lewis <[email protected]> | Date:   Tue Mar 8 14:39:40 2011 -0800 |  |     Removed another remote branch check |   

Git doesn't seem to be filtering. It doesn't seem to make any difference whether --branches is passed with other arguments or not. My Git version is git version 1.7.4.1. Does anyone know how to use this command successfully?

EDIT: All I want to be able to do is get the log of one branch or another, without having to do a checkout first.

Answer 1

Firstly, (the other) Adam is right that it doesn't make sense to use --all for this: if you only want to see one branch like your question states, why ask for all branches?

Secondly, as already stated in comments to other answers, you don't need --branches; just do git log mybranch.

Thirdly, I can explain why git log --branches=mybranch doesn't work. The git-log(1) man page says:

--branches[=<pattern>]     Pretend as if all the refs in refs/heads are listed on     the command line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given,      limit branches to ones matching given shell glob. If      pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the end is implied. 

The last sentence is the crucial point here. If the <pattern> is just mybranch then there is no globbing character, so git-log interprets it as if you'd typed

git log --branches=mybranch/* 

which only matches references under $repo/.git/refs/heads/mybranch/*, i.e. branches which begin with mybranch/.

There is a dirty hack to prevent the /* from being assumed:

git log --branches=[m]ybranch 

but I can't think of any good reason why you would want to do this rather than just typing

git log mybranch