How to show Git log history (i.e., all the related commits) for a sub directory of a Git repository

Question

Let’s say that I have a Git repository that looks like this:

foo/
  .git/
  A/
   ... big tree here
  B/
   ... big tree here

Is there a way to ask git log to show only the log messages for a specific directory? For example, I want to see what commits touched files in foo/A only.

Answer 1

From directory foo/, use

  git log -- A

You need the '--' to separate <path>.. from the <since>..<until> refspecs.

# Show changes for src/nvfs
$ git log --oneline -- src/nvfs
d6f6b3b Changes for Mac OS X
803fcc3 Initial Commit

# Show all changes (one additional commit besides in src/nvfs).
$ git log --oneline
d6f6b3b Changes for Mac OS X
96cbb79 gitignore
803fcc3 Initial Commit

Answer 2

Enter

git log .

from the specific directory. It also gives commits in that directory.

Answer 3

If you want to see it graphically you can use gitk:

gitk -- foo/A

Answer 4

You can use git log with the pathnames of the respective folders:

git log A B

The log will only show commits made in A and B. I usually throw in --stat to make things a little prettier, which helps for quick commit reviews.

Answer 5

For tracking changes to a folder where the folder was moved, I started using:

git rev-list --all --pretty=oneline -- "*/foo/subfoo/*"

This isn't perfect as it will grab other folders with the same name, but if it is unique, then it seems to work.

Answer 6

The other answers only show the changed files.

git log -p DIR is very useful, if you need the full diff of all changed files in a specific subdirectory.

Example: Show all detailed changes in a specific version range

git log -p 8a5fb..HEAD -- A B

commit 62ad8c5d
Author: Scott Tiger
Date:   Mon Nov 27 14:25:29 2017 +0100

    My comment

...
@@ -216,6 +216,10 @@ public class MyClass {

+  Added
-  Deleted