How to show local branch history?

Question

I'm very new to git, I want to know how to track branch history?

For example:

echo "update README in branch master" >> README.md
git commit -a -m"commit in branch master"
git checkout -b b1
echo "update README in branch b1" >> README.md
git commit -a -m"commit in branch b1"
git checkout master
git merge b1
git push

then someone clone this repo, how to show branch history?

git log --graph

* commit 4162ecc962aa020ec6294312e4f8eed63ca152d1
| Author: test1 <[email protected]>
| Date:   Fri Feb 15 14:37:43 2013 +0900
|
|     commit in branch b1
|
* commit 08e80fc644fa7ebb374a601e16533a8fc3578f88
| Author: test1 <[email protected]>
| Date:   Fri Feb 15 14:37:04 2013 +0900
|
|     commit in branch master
|
* commit 9d9649cdb409654616798d8feeb516738997e2e0
  Author: test1 <[email protected]>
    Date:   Thu Feb 14 21:33:46 2013 -0800

            Initial commit

I also see some this kind of log:

* commit 2f49d77afe0708037eab1de3d216484d01f1c190
| Author: ericz <[email protected]>
| Date:   Wed Feb 13 11:45:49 2013 -0800
|
|     readme update
|
*   commit 996214b87cce3473297ed0997ca567497271e05a
|\  Merge: a239b70 5269cd4
| | Author: ericz <[email protected]>
| | Date:   Wed Feb 13 11:45:23 2013 -0800
| |
| |     Merge branch 'master' of github.com:peers/peerjs
| |
| * commit 5269cd455f1522e88ab5a15228effe11665e6a89
| | Author: Eric Zhang <[email protected]>
| | Date:   Wed Feb 13 09:47:05 2013 -0800
| |
| |     Update README.md
| |
* | commit a239b706f294c469a5c6542ce7e6f5e60417445a
| | Author: ericz <[email protected]>
| | Date:   Wed Feb 13 11:45:09 2013 -0800
| |
| |     new exmales
| |
* | commit 0ce560d093637b3a17c7b5f1ab1de3f9c00bb888
|/  Author: ericz <[email protected]>
|   Date:   Wed Feb 13 11:02:33 2013 -0800
|
|       simple chat example

how this happen?

and how to draw graph like this:

               D---E-------F
                      /     \       \
                     B---C---G---H---I---J
                    /                     \
                   A-------K---------------L--M

Answer 1

You're on the right track. Try using:

git log --graph --all --oneline

Here's an example:

* e96e246 H
| * c12759a G
|/  
*   547058e F
|\  
| * b81eb87 E
* | 26a34db D
| | * 47a536f C
| | * b8fa965 B
| |/  
|/|   
* | cd14ec4 A

I personally use an alais in .gitconfig,

[alias]
    graph = log --graph --all --date=short --pretty=format':%C(yellow)%h%Cblue%d%Creset %s %Cgreen %aN, %ad%Creset'

Which gives a similar output, but with slightly more awesomeness (branches, dates, authors):

* e96e246 (HEAD, master, origin/master) H.  Developer A, 2012-12-13
| * c12759a (branch_2) G.  Developer B, 2012-12-13
|/  
*   547058e F. Developer C, 2012-12-11
|\  
| * b81eb87 E. Developer A, 2012-11-28
* | 26a34db D. Developer C, 2012-12-11
| | * 47a536f (branch_1) C.  Developer B, 2012-10-10
| | * b8fa965 B. Developer B, 2012-10-11
| |/  
|/|   
* | cd14ec4 A. Developer B, 2012-10-10

If you have the ability to use a GUI with git, gitk is usually highly recommended for this kind of thing. Here's an intro.