Viewing commit history with git log - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Viewing commit history with git log

📖 Scenario: You are working on a small project and want to see the history of changes made to your files. This helps you understand what was changed and when.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use the git log command to view the commit history of a Git repository.

📋 What You'll Learn

Initialize a Git repository

Make at least two commits

Use git log to view commit history

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Viewing commit history helps developers track changes, find bugs, and understand project progress.

💼 Career

Knowing how to use <code>git log</code> is essential for software developers, DevOps engineers, and anyone working with version control.

1

Initialize a Git repository and create commits

Run git init to create a new Git repository. Then create a file named file.txt with the content Hello. Add the file with git add file.txt and commit it with the message First commit. Next, change the content of file.txt to Hello, world!, add it again, and commit with the message Second commit.

Git

# Run the commands to initialize git and create two commits
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git init to start the repository. Use echo to write text to the file. Use git add and git commit -m to save changes.

2

Set up a configuration to limit log output

Create a variable called log_limit and set it to 1. This will be used to limit the number of commits shown in the log.

Git

git init

echo Hello > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "First commit"

echo Hello, world! > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "Second commit"

# Create a variable called log_limit and set it to 1
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use log_limit=1 to create the variable.

3

Use git log with the limit option

Run the command git log -n $log_limit to show only the most recent commit in the history.

Git

git init

echo Hello > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "First commit"

echo Hello, world! > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "Second commit"

log_limit=1

# Run git log with -n $log_limit to show limited commits
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use git log -n $log_limit to limit the number of commits shown.

4

Display the full commit history

Run git log without any limit to see all commits in the repository.

Git

git init

echo Hello > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "First commit"

echo Hello, world! > file.txt

git add file.txt

git commit -m "Second commit"

log_limit=1

git log -n $log_limit

# Run git log to show all commits
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Simply run git log to see all commits.