git log formatting options - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Explore git log formatting options

📖 Scenario: You are working on a project with a Git repository. You want to see the commit history in a clear and customized way to understand changes better.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use git log with formatting options to display commit history with specific details.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use git log command

Format commit logs with --pretty=format: option

Display commit hash, author name, date, and commit message in a custom format

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Developers often need to review commit history clearly to understand changes and authorship.

💼 Career

Knowing how to customize git log output is useful for code reviews, debugging, and reporting in software development jobs.

1

Initialize a Git repository and make commits

Create a new Git repository and make two commits with messages "First commit" and "Second commit".

Git

# Initialize git repo and make two commits
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git init to start a repo, then create a file and commit twice with the exact messages.

2

Set a custom format string for git log

Create a variable called format_string and set it to "%h - %an, %ar : %s" to show short commit hash, author name, relative date, and commit message.

Git

git init

echo "Hello" > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "First commit"

echo "World" >> file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "Second commit"

# Create format_string variable
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the exact string "%h - %an, %ar : %s" to format_string.

3

Use git log with the custom format string

Use the command git log --pretty=format:"$format_string" to display the commit history with the custom format.

Git

git init

echo "Hello" > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "First commit"

echo "World" >> file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "Second commit"

format_string="%h - %an, %ar : %s"

# Run git log with custom format
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git log --pretty=format:"$format_string" exactly to show commits.

4

Display the formatted git log output

Run the command to display the commit history with the custom format and observe the output.

Git

git init

echo "Hello" > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "First commit"

echo "World" >> file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "Second commit"

format_string="%h - %an, %ar : %s"

git log --pretty=format:"$format_string"

# Observe the output

Need a hint?

The output should show two lines with short hashes, author names, relative dates, and commit messages.