Make git log great again! - Blog Hiếu Đá

This trick is a better way to show and visualize git history in the command line. Working in anywhere git runs.

git log command with history visualize — Better git log command

This is the command to do it

Copy this command and paste into your git working directory:

git log --topo-order --all --graph --date=local --pretty=format:'%C(green)%h%C(reset) %><(55,trunc)%s%C(red)%d%C(reset) %C(blue)[%an]%C(reset) %C(yellow)%ad%C(reset)%n'

1	git log --topo-order --all --graph --date=local --pretty=format:'%C(green)%h%C(reset) %><(55,trunc)%s%C(red)%d%C(reset) %C(blue)[%an]%C(reset) %C(yellow)%ad%C(reset)%n'

That’s all, right? But I have some magic with this trick. Moving on!

Create an alias in ~/.gitconfig for confident using

After this step, you can call the whole command above just by “git lg” instead of g~~it log~~.

Open .gitconfig file in any text editor. (nano, vim, notepad, MSWord, etc.)
Add command below the [alias] section.
The entire file might look like this:

[user]
    name = JK. KyTs
    email = jk.kyts@email.com
[alias]
    lg = log --topo-order --all --graph --date=local --pretty=format:'%C(green)%h%C(reset) %><(55,trunc)%s%C(red)%d%C(reset) %C(blue)[%an]%C(reset) %C(yellow)%ad%C(reset)%n'

[user]

name = JK. KyTs

email = [email protected]

[alias]

lg = log --topo-order --all --graph --date=local --pretty=format:'%C(green)%h%C(reset) %><(55,trunc)%s%C(red)%d%C(reset) %C(blue)[%an]%C(reset) %C(yellow)%ad%C(reset)%n'

BE CAREFULL: If these steps are too complex, follow the best practice I mention hereafter.

Best practice:

Copy and paste to your terminal, one-time setup forever!

git config --global alias.lg "log --topo-order --all --graph --date=local --pretty=format:'%C(green)%h%C(reset) %><(55,trunc)%s%C(red)%d%C(reset) %C(blue)[%an]%C(reset) %C(yellow)%ad%C(reset)%n'"

1	git config --global alias.lg "log --topo-order --all --graph --date=local --pretty=format:'%C(green)%h%C(reset) %><(55,trunc)%s%C(red)%d%C(reset) %C(blue)[%an]%C(reset) %C(yellow)%ad%C(reset)%n'"