GIT-NAME-REV(1) Git Manual GIT-NAME-REV(1)

NAME

git-name-rev - Find symbolic names for given revs

SYNOPSIS

git name-rev [--tags] [--refs=<pattern>]
( --all | --annotate-stdin | <commit-ish>... )

DESCRIPTION

Finds symbolic names suitable for human digestion for revisions given
in any format parsable by git rev-parse.

OPTIONS

--tags
Do not use branch names, but only tags to name the commits

--refs=<pattern>
Only use refs whose names match a given shell pattern. The
pattern can be a branch name, a tag name, or a fully qualified
ref name. If given multiple times, use refs whose names match any
of the given shell patterns. Use --no-refs to clear any previous
ref patterns given.

--exclude=<pattern>
Do not use any ref whose name matches a given shell pattern. The
pattern can be one of branch name, tag name or fully qualified
ref name. If given multiple times, a ref will be excluded when it
matches any of the given patterns. When used together with
--refs, a ref will be used as a match only when it matches at
least one --refs pattern and does not match any --exclude
patterns. Use --no-exclude to clear the list of exclude patterns.

--all
List all commits reachable from all refs

--annotate-stdin
Transform stdin by substituting all the 40-character SHA-1 hexes
(say $hex) with "$hex ($rev_name)". When used with --name-only,
substitute with "$rev_name", omitting $hex altogether. This
option was called --stdin in older versions of Git.

For example:

$ cat sample.txt

An abbreviated revision 2ae0a9cb82 will not be substituted.
The full name after substitution is 2ae0a9cb8298185a94e5998086f380a355dd8907,
while its tree object is 70d105cc79e63b81cfdcb08a15297c23e60b07ad

$ git name-rev --annotate-stdin <sample.txt

An abbreviated revision 2ae0a9cb82 will not be substituted.
The full name after substitution is 2ae0a9cb8298185a94e5998086f380a355dd8907 (master),
while its tree object is 70d105cc79e63b81cfdcb08a15297c23e60b07ad

$ git name-rev --name-only --annotate-stdin <sample.txt

An abbreviated revision 2ae0a9cb82 will not be substituted.
The full name after substitution is master,
while its tree object is 70d105cc79e63b81cfdcb08a15297c23e60b07ad

--name-only
Instead of printing both the SHA-1 and the name, print only the
name. If given with --tags the usual tag prefix of "tags/" is
also omitted from the name, matching the output of git-describe
more closely.

--no-undefined
Die with error code != 0 when a reference is undefined, instead
of printing undefined.

--always
Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback.

EXAMPLES

Given a commit, find out where it is relative to the local refs. Say
somebody wrote you about that fantastic commit
33db5f4d9027a10e477ccf054b2c1ab94f74c85a. Of course, you look into
the commit, but that only tells you what happened, but not the
context.

Enter git name-rev:

% git name-rev 33db5f4d9027a10e477ccf054b2c1ab94f74c85a
33db5f4d9027a10e477ccf054b2c1ab94f74c85a tags/v0.99~940

Now you are wiser, because you know that it happened 940 revisions
before v0.99.

Another nice thing you can do is:

% git log | git name-rev --annotate-stdin

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-NAME-REV(1)