How can I query git to find out which branches contain a given commit? gitk
will usually list the branches, unless there are too many, in which case it just says "many (38)" or something like that. I need to know the full list, or at least whether certain branches contain the commit.
3 Answers
From the git-branch manual page:
git branch --contains <commit>
Only list branches which contain the specified commit (HEAD if not specified). Implies
--list
.
git branch -r --contains <commit>
Lists remote tracking branches as well (as mentioned in user3941992's answer below) that is "local branches that have a direct relationship to a remote branch".
As noted by Carl Walsh, this applies only to the default refspec
fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
If you need to include other ref namespace (pull request, Gerrit, ...), you need to add that new refspec, and fetch again:
git config --add remote.origin.fetch "+refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*"
git fetch
git branch -r --contains <commit>
See also this git ready article.
The
--contains
tag will figure out if a certain commit has been brought in yet into your branch. Perhaps you’ve got a commit SHA from a patch you thought you had applied, or you just want to check if commit for your favorite open source project that reduces memory usage by 75% is in yet.
$ git log -1 tests
commit d590f2ac0635ec0053c4a7377bd929943d475297
Author: Nick Quaranto <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Apr 1 20:38:59 2009 -0400
Green all around, finally.
$ git branch --contains d590f2
tests
* master
Note: if the commit is on a remote tracking branch, add the -a
option.
(as MichielB comments below)
git branch -a --contains <commit>
MatrixFrog comments that it only shows which branches contain that exact commit.
If you want to know which branches contain an "equivalent" commit (i.e. which branches have cherry-picked that commit) that's git cherry
:
Because
git cherry
compares the changeset rather than the commit id (sha1), you can usegit cherry
to find out if a commit you made locally has been applied<upstream>
under a different commit id.
For example, this will happen if you’re feeding patches<upstream>
via email rather than pushing or pulling commits directly.
__*__*__*__*__> <upstream>
/
fork-point
\__+__+__-__+__+__-__+__> <head>
(Here, the commits marked '-
' wouldn't show up with git cherry
, meaning they are already present in <upstream>
.)
You may run:
git log <SHA1>..HEAD --ancestry-path --merges
From comment of last commit in the output you may find original branch name
Example:
c---e---g--- feature
/ \
-a---b---d---f---h---j--- master
git log e..master --ancestry-path --merges
commit h
Merge: g f
Author: Eugen Konkov <>
Date: Sat Oct 1 00:54:18 2016 +0300
Merge branch 'feature' into master
The answer for git branch -r --contains <commit>
works well for normal remote branches, but if the commit is only in the hidden head
namespace that GitHub creates for PRs, you'll need a few more steps.
Say, if PR #42 was from deleted branch and that PR thread has the only reference to the commit on the repo, git branch -r
doesn't know about PR #42 because refs like refs/pull/42/head
aren't listed as a remote branch by default.
In .git/config
for the [remote "origin"]
section add a new line:
fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*
(This gist has more context.)
Then when you git fetch
you'll get all the PR branches, and when you run git branch -r --contains <commit>
you'll see origin/pr/42
contains the commit.