git-replay(1) Git Manual git-replay(1)
NAME
git-replay - EXPERIMENTAL: Replay commits on a new base, works with bare
repos too
SYNOPSIS
(EXPERIMENTAL!) git replay ([--contained] --onto=<newbase> | --advance=<branch> | --revert=<branch>)
[--ref=<ref>] [--ref-action=<mode>] [--linearize] <revision-range>
DESCRIPTION
Takes a range of commits and replays them onto a new location. Leaves the
working tree and the index untouched. By default, updates the relevant
references using an atomic transaction (all refs update or none). Use
--ref-action=print to avoid automatic ref updates and instead get update
commands that can be piped to git update-ref --stdin (see the OUTPUT
section below).
THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. THE BEHAVIOR MAY CHANGE.
OPTIONS
--onto=<newbase>
Starting point at which to create the new commits. May be any valid
commit, and not just an existing branch name.
When --onto is specified, the branch(es) in the revision range will
be updated to point at the new commits, similar to the way git rebase
--update-refs updates multiple branches in the affected range.
--advance=<branch>
Starting point at which to create the new commits; must be a branch
name.
The history is replayed on top of the <branch> and <branch> is
updated to point at the tip of the resulting history. This is
different from --onto, which uses the target only as a starting point
without updating it.
--revert=<branch>
Starting point at which to create the reverted commits; must be a
branch name.
When --revert is specified, the commits in the revision range are
reverted (their changes are undone) and the reverted commits are
created on top of <branch>. The <branch> is then updated to point at
the new commits. This is the same as running git revert
<revision-range> but does not update the working tree.
The commit messages follow git revert conventions: they are prefixed
with "Revert" and include "This reverts commit <hash>." When
reverting a commit whose message starts with "Revert", the new
message uses "Reapply" instead. Unlike cherry-pick which preserves
the original author, revert commits use the current user as the
author, matching the behavior of git revert.
This option is mutually exclusive with --onto and --advance. It is
also incompatible with --contained (which is a modifier for --onto
only).
--contained
Update all branches that point at commits in <revision-range>.
Requires --onto.
--ref=<ref>
Override which reference is updated with the result of the replay.
The ref must be fully qualified. When used with --onto, the
<revision-range> should have a single tip and only the specified
reference is updated instead of inferring refs from the revision
range. When used with --advance or --revert, the specified reference
is updated instead of the branch given to those options. This option
is incompatible with --contained.
--ref-action[=<mode>]
Control how references are updated. The mode can be:
update
(default) Update refs directly using an atomic transaction. All
refs are updated or none are (all-or-nothing behavior).
print
Output update-ref commands for pipeline use. This is the
traditional behavior where output can be piped to git update-ref
--stdin.
The default mode can be configured via the replay.refAction
configuration variable.
--linearize
In this mode, each replayed commit is stacked on top of the
previously replayed one, so all replayed commits are flattened into a
single linear history.
When a merge commit is encountered, all commits in the range
reachable from the merge commit are replayed into the linear history,
and the merge commit itself is dropped. A ref that pointed to a merge
commit is updated to the merge's last replayed ancestor. (This
matches the behavior of git-rebase(1)'s --no-rebase-merges option.)
--linearize cannot be combined with multiple branches or with
--contained. To linearize several branches, replay them in separate
git replay invocations.
<revision-range>
Range of commits to replay; see "Specifying Ranges" in git-rev-
parse(1). In --advance=<branch> or --revert=<branch> mode, the range
should have a single tip, so that it's clear to which tip the
advanced or reverted <branch> should point. Any commits in the range
whose changes are already present in the branch the commits are being
replayed onto will be dropped.
Commit Limiting
Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the
special notations explained in the description, additional commit
limiting may be applied.
Using more options generally further limits the output (e.g.
--since=<date1> limits to commits newer than <date1>, and using it with
--grep=<pattern> further limits to commits whose log message has a line
that matches <pattern>), unless otherwise noted.
Note that these are applied before commit ordering and formatting
options, such as --reverse.
-<number>, -n <number>, --max-count=<number>
Limit the output to the first <number> commits that would be shown.
--max-count-oldest=<number>
Limit the output to the last <number> commits that would be shown.
--skip=<number>
Skip <number> commits before starting to show the commit output.
--since=<date>, --after=<date>
Show commits more recent than <date>. As a special case, today means
the last midnight.
--since-as-filter=<date>
Show all commits more recent than <date>. This visits all commits in
the range, rather than stopping at the first commit which is older
than <date>.
--until=<date>, --before=<date>
Show commits older than <date>.
--author=<pattern>, --committer=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header lines
that match the <pattern> regular expression. With more than one
--author=<pattern>, commits whose author matches any of the <pattern>
are chosen (similarly for multiple --committer=<pattern>).
--grep-reflog=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with reflog entries that match the
<pattern> regular expression. With more than one --grep-reflog,
commits whose reflog message matches any of the given patterns are
chosen. It is an error to use this option unless --walk-reflogs is in
use.
--grep=<pattern>
Limit the commits output to ones with a log message that matches the
<pattern> regular expression. With more than one --grep=<pattern>,
commits whose message matches any of the <pattern> are chosen (but
see --all-match).
When --notes is in effect, the message from the notes is matched as
if it were part of the log message.
--all-match
Limit the commits output to ones that match all given --grep, instead
of ones that match at least one.
--invert-grep
Limit the commits output to ones with a log message that do not match
the <pattern> specified with --grep=<pattern>.
-i, --regexp-ignore-case
Match the regular expression limiting patterns without regard to
letter case.
--basic-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be basic regular expressions; this
is the default.
-E, --extended-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions
instead of the default basic regular expressions.
-F, --fixed-strings
Consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don't interpret
pattern as a regular expression).
-P, --perl-regexp
Consider the limiting patterns to be Perl-compatible regular
expressions.
Support for these types of regular expressions is an optional
compile-time dependency. If Git wasn't compiled with support for them
providing this option will cause it to die.
--remove-empty
Stop when a given path disappears from the tree.
--merges
Print only merge commits. This is exactly the same as
--min-parents=2.
--no-merges
Do not print commits with more than one parent. This is exactly the
same as --max-parents=1.
--min-parents=<number>, --max-parents=<number>, --no-min-parents,
--no-max-parents
Show only commits which have at least (or at most) that many parent
commits. In particular, --max-parents=1 is the same as --no-merges,
--min-parents=2 is the same as --merges. --max-parents=0 gives all
root commits and --min-parents=3 all octopus merges.
--no-min-parents and --no-max-parents reset these limits (to no
limit) again. Equivalent forms are --min-parents=0 (any commit has 0
or more parents) and --max-parents=-1 (negative numbers denote no
upper limit).
--first-parent
When finding commits to include, follow only the first parent commit
upon seeing a merge commit. This option can give a better overview
when viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch, because
merges into a topic branch tend to be only about adjusting to updated
upstream from time to time, and this option allows you to ignore the
individual commits brought in to your history by such a merge.
--exclude-first-parent-only
When finding commits to exclude (with a ^), follow only the first
parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. This can be used to find
the set of changes in a topic branch from the point where it diverged
from the remote branch, given that arbitrary merges can be valid
topic branch changes.
--maximal-only
Restrict the output commits to be those that are not reachable from
any other commits in the revision range.
--not
Reverses the meaning of the ^ prefix (or lack thereof) for all
following revision specifiers, up to the next --not. When used on the
command line before --stdin, the revisions passed through stdin will
not be affected by it. Conversely, when passed via standard input,
the revisions passed on the command line will not be affected by it.
--all
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/, along with HEAD, are listed on
the command line as <commit>.
--branches[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/heads are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit branches to ones
matching given shell glob. If <pattern> lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the
end is implied.
--tags[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/tags are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit tags to ones matching
given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the end is
implied.
--remotes[=<pattern>]
Pretend as if all the refs in refs/remotes are listed on the command
line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, limit remote-tracking
branches to ones matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?, *, or
[, /* at the end is implied.
--glob=<glob-pattern>
Pretend as if all the refs matching shell glob <glob-pattern> are
listed on the command line as <commit>. Leading refs/, is
automatically prepended if missing. If pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /*
at the end is implied.
--exclude=<glob-pattern>
Do not include refs matching <glob-pattern> that the next --all,
--branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob would otherwise consider.
Repetitions of this option accumulate exclusion patterns up to the
next --all, --branches, --tags, --remotes, or --glob option (other
options or arguments do not clear accumulated patterns).
The patterns given should not begin with refs/heads, refs/tags, or
refs/remotes when applied to --branches, --tags, or --remotes,
respectively, and they must begin with refs/ when applied to --glob
or --all. If a trailing /* is intended, it must be given explicitly.
--exclude-hidden=(fetch|receive|uploadpack)
Do not include refs that would be hidden by git-fetch,
git-receive-pack or git-upload-pack by consulting the appropriate
fetch.hideRefs, receive.hideRefs or uploadpack.hideRefs configuration
along with transfer.hideRefs (see git-config(1)). This option affects
the next pseudo-ref option --all or --glob and is cleared after
processing them.
--reflog
Pretend as if all objects mentioned by reflogs are listed on the
command line as <commit>.
--alternate-refs
Pretend as if all objects mentioned as ref tips of alternate
repositories were listed on the command line. An alternate repository
is any repository whose object directory is specified in
objects/info/alternates. The set of included objects may be modified
by core.alternateRefsCommand, etc. See git-config(1).
--single-worktree
By default, all working trees will be examined by the following
options when there are more than one (see git-worktree(1)): --all,
--reflog and --indexed-objects. This option forces them to examine
the current working tree only.
--ignore-missing
Upon seeing an invalid object name in the input, pretend as if the
bad input was not given.
--bisect
Pretend as if the bad bisection ref refs/bisect/bad was listed and as
if it was followed by --not and the good bisection refs
refs/bisect/good-* on the command line.
--stdin
In addition to getting arguments from the command line, read them
from standard input as well. This accepts commits and pseudo-options
like --all and --glob=. When a -- separator is seen, the following
input is treated as paths and used to limit the result. Flags like
--not which are read via standard input are only respected for
arguments passed in the same way and will not influence any
subsequent command line arguments.
--cherry-mark
Like --cherry-pick (see below) but mark equivalent commits with =
rather than omitting them, and inequivalent ones with +.
--cherry-pick
Omit any commit that introduces the same change as another commit on
the "other side" when the set of commits are limited with symmetric
difference.
For example, if you have two branches, A and B, a usual way to list
all commits on only one side of them is with --left-right (see the
example below in the description of the --left-right option).
However, it shows the commits that were cherry-picked from the other
branch (for example, "3rd on b" may be cherry-picked from branch A).
With this option, such pairs of commits are excluded from the output.
--left-only, --right-only
List only commits on the respective side of a symmetric difference,
i.e. only those which would be marked < resp. > by --left-right.
For example, --cherry-pick --right-only A...B omits those commits
from B which are in A or are patch-equivalent to a commit in A. In
other words, this lists the + commits from git cherry A B. More
precisely, --cherry-pick --right-only --no-merges gives the exact
list.
--cherry
A synonym for --right-only --cherry-mark --no-merges; useful to limit
the output to the commits on our side and mark those that have been
applied to the other side of a forked history with git log --cherry
upstream...mybranch, similar to git cherry upstream mybranch.
-g, --walk-reflogs
Instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk reflog entries
from the most recent one to older ones. When this option is used you
cannot specify commits to exclude (that is, ^<commit>,
<commit1>..<commit2>, and <commit1>...<commit2> notations cannot be
used).
With --pretty format other than oneline and reference (for obvious
reasons), this causes the output to have two extra lines of
information taken from the reflog. The reflog designator in the
output may be shown as ref@{<Nth>} (where <Nth> is the
reverse-chronological index in the reflog) or as ref@{<timestamp>}
(with the <timestamp> for that entry), depending on a few rules:
1. If the starting point is specified as ref@{<Nth>}, show the index
format.
2. If the starting point was specified as ref@{now}, show the
timestamp format.
3. If neither was used, but --date was given on the command line,
show the timestamp in the format requested by --date.
4. Otherwise, show the index format.
Under --pretty=oneline, the commit message is prefixed with this
information on the same line. This option cannot be combined with
--reverse. See also git-reflog(1).
Under --pretty=reference, this information will not be shown at all.
--merge
Show commits touching conflicted paths in the range HEAD...<other>,
where <other> is the first existing pseudoref in MERGE_HEAD,
CHERRY_PICK_HEAD, REVERT_HEAD or REBASE_HEAD. Only works when the
index has unmerged entries. This option can be used to show relevant
commits when resolving conflicts from a 3-way merge.
--boundary
Output excluded boundary commits. Boundary commits are prefixed with
-.
History Simplification
Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example
the commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of
History Simplification, one part is selecting the commits and the other
is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the history.
The following options select the commits to be shown:
<paths>
Commits modifying the given <paths> are selected.
--simplify-by-decoration
Commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected.
Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history.
The following options affect the way the simplification is performed:
Default mode
Simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the final
state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side branches if
the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches with the same
content)
--show-pulls
Include all commits from the default mode, but also any merge commits
that are not TREESAME to the first parent but are TREESAME to a later
parent. This mode is helpful for showing the merge commits that
"first introduced" a change to a branch.
--full-history
Same as the default mode, but does not prune some history.
--dense
Only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a meaningful
history.
--sparse
All commits in the simplified history are shown.
--simplify-merges
Additional option to --full-history to remove some needless merges
from the resulting history, as there are no selected commits
contributing to this merge.
--ancestry-path[=<commit>]
When given a range of commits to display (e.g. <commit1>..<commit2>
or <commit2> ^<commit1>), and a commit <commit> in that range, only
display commits in that range that are ancestors of <commit>,
descendants of <commit>, or <commit> itself. If no commit is
specified, use <commit1> (the excluded part of the range) as
<commit>. Can be passed multiple times; if so, a commit is included
if it is any of the commits given or if it is an ancestor or
descendant of one of them.
A more detailed explanation follows.
Suppose you specified foo as the <paths>. We shall call commits that
modify foo !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff filtered for foo,
they look different and equal, respectively.)
In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to
illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume
that you are filtering for a file foo in this commit graph:
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / / /
I B C D E Y
\ / / / / /
`-------------' X
The horizontal line of history A---Q is taken to be the first parent of
each merge. The commits are:
o I is the initial commit, in which foo exists with contents asdf, and
a file quux exists with contents quux. Initial commits are compared
to an empty tree, so I is !TREESAME.
o In A, foo contains just foo.
o B contains the same change as A. Its merge M is trivial and hence
TREESAME to all parents.
o C does not change foo, but its merge N changes it to foobar, so it is
not TREESAME to any parent.
o D sets foo to baz. Its merge O combines the strings from N and D to
foobarbaz; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent.
o E changes quux to xyzzy, and its merge P combines the strings to quux
xyzzy. P is TREESAME to O, but not to E.
o X is an independent root commit that added a new file side, and Y
modified it. Y is TREESAME to X. Its merge Q added side to P, and Q
is TREESAME to P, but not to Y.
rev-list walks backwards through history, including or excluding commits
based on whether --full-history and/or parent rewriting (via --parents or
--children) are used. The following settings are available.
Default mode
Commits are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent (though
this can be changed, see --sparse below). If the commit was a merge,
and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow only that parent. (Even if
there are several TREESAME parents, follow only one of them.)
Otherwise, follow all parents.
This results in:
.-A---N---O
/ / /
I---------D
Note how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is
available, removed B from consideration entirely. C was considered
via N, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an empty tree,
so I is !TREESAME.
Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that does
not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have shown the
parent lines.
--full-history without parent rewriting
This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow all
parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. Even if
more than one side of the merge has commits that are included, this
does not imply that the merge itself is! In the example, we get
I A B N D O P Q
M was excluded because it is TREESAME to both parents. E, C and B
were all walked, but only B was !TREESAME, so the others do not
appear.
Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to talk
about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so we show
them disconnected.
--full-history with parent rewriting
Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME (though this
can be changed, see --sparse below).
Merges are always included. However, their parent list is rewritten:
Along each parent, prune away commits that are not included
themselves. This results in
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / /
I B / D /
\ / / / /
`-------------'
Compare to --full-history without rewriting above. Note that E was
pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was
rewritten to contain E's parent I. The same happened for C and N, and
X, Y and Q.
In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME
affects inclusion:
--dense
Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME to any
parent.
--sparse
All commits that are walked are included.
Note that without --full-history, this still simplifies merges: if
one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the other
sides of the merge are never walked.
--simplify-merges
First, build a history graph in the same way that --full-history with
parent rewriting does (see above).
Then simplify each commit C to its replacement C' in the final
history according to the following rules:
o Set C' to C.
o Replace each parent P of C' with its simplification P'. In the
process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents or that
are root commits TREESAME to an empty tree, and remove
duplicates, but take care to never drop all parents that we are
TREESAME to.
o If after this parent rewriting, C' is a root or merge commit (has
zero or >1 parents), a boundary commit, or !TREESAME, it remains.
Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent.
The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to
--full-history with parent rewriting. The example turns into:
.-A---M---N---O
/ / /
I B D
\ / /
`---------'
Note the major differences in N, P, and Q over --full-history:
o N's parent list had I removed, because it is an ancestor of the
other parent M. Still, N remained because it is !TREESAME.
o P's parent list similarly had I removed. P was then removed
completely, because it had one parent and is TREESAME.
o Q's parent list had Y simplified to X. X was then removed,
because it was a TREESAME root. Q was then removed completely,
because it had one parent and is TREESAME.
There is another simplification mode available:
--ancestry-path[=<commit>]
Limit the displayed commits to those which are an ancestor of
<commit>, or which are a descendant of <commit>, or are <commit>
itself.
As an example use case, consider the following commit history:
D---E-------F
/ \ \
B---C---G---H---I---J
/ \
A-------K---------------L--M
A regular D..M computes the set of commits that are ancestors of M,
but excludes the ones that are ancestors of D. This is useful to see
what happened to the history leading to M since D, in the sense that
"what does M have that did not exist in D". The result in this
example would be all the commits, except A and B (and D itself, of
course).
When we want to find out what commits in M are contaminated with the
bug introduced by D and need fixing, however, we might want to view
only the subset of D..M that are actually descendants of D, i.e.
excluding C and K. This is exactly what the --ancestry-path option
does. Applied to the D..M range, it results in:
E-------F
\ \
G---H---I---J
\
L--M
We can also use --ancestry-path=D instead of --ancestry-path which
means the same thing when applied to the D..M range but is just more
explicit.
If we instead are interested in a given topic within this range, and
all commits affected by that topic, we may only want to view the
subset of D..M which contain that topic in their ancestry path. So,
using --ancestry-path=H D..M for example would result in:
E
\
C---G---H---I---J
\
L--M
Whereas --ancestry-path=K D..M would result in
K---------------L--M
Before discussing another option, --show-pulls, we need to create a new
example history.
A common problem users face when looking at simplified history is that a
commit they know changed a file somehow does not appear in the file's
simplified history. Let's demonstrate a new example and show how options
such as --full-history and --simplify-merges works in that case:
.-A---M-----C--N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`-Z' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `---Y--'
For this example, suppose I created file.txt which was modified by A, B,
and X in different ways. The single-parent commits C, Z, and Y do not
change file.txt. The merge commit M was created by resolving the merge
conflict to include both changes from A and B and hence is not TREESAME
to either. The merge commit R, however, was created by ignoring the
contents of file.txt at M and taking only the contents of file.txt at X.
Hence, R is TREESAME to X but not M. Finally, the natural merge
resolution to create N is to take the contents of file.txt at R, so N is
TREESAME to R but not C. The merge commits O and P are TREESAME to their
first parents, but not to their second parents, Z and Y respectively.
When using the default mode, N and R both have a TREESAME parent, so
those edges are walked and the others are ignored. The resulting history
graph is:
I---X
When using --full-history, Git walks every edge. This will discover the
commits A and B and the merge M, but also will reveal the merge commits O
and P. With parent rewriting, the resulting graph is:
.-A---M--------N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`--' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `------'
Here, the merge commits O and P contribute extra noise, as they did not
actually contribute a change to file.txt. They only merged a topic that
was based on an older version of file.txt. This is a common issue in
repositories using a workflow where many contributors work in parallel
and merge their topic branches along a single trunk: many unrelated
merges appear in the --full-history results.
When using the --simplify-merges option, the commits O and P disappear
from the results. This is because the rewritten second parents of O and P
are reachable from their first parents. Those edges are removed and then
the commits look like single-parent commits that are TREESAME to their
parent. This also happens to the commit N, resulting in a history view as
follows:
.-A---M--.
/ / \
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'
In this view, we see all of the important single-parent changes from A,
B, and X. We also see the carefully-resolved merge M and the
not-so-carefully-resolved merge R. This is usually enough information to
determine why the commits A and B "disappeared" from history in the
default view. However, there are a few issues with this approach.
The first issue is performance. Unlike any previous option, the
--simplify-merges option requires walking the entire commit history
before returning a single result. This can make the option difficult to
use for very large repositories.
The second issue is one of auditing. When many contributors are working
on the same repository, it is important which merge commits introduced a
change into an important branch. The problematic merge R above is not
likely to be the merge commit that was used to merge into an important
branch. Instead, the merge N was used to merge R and X into the important
branch. This commit may have information about why the change X came to
override the changes from A and B in its commit message.
--show-pulls
In addition to the commits shown in the default history, show each
merge commit that is not TREESAME to its first parent but is TREESAME
to a later parent.
When a merge commit is included by --show-pulls, the merge is treated
as if it "pulled" the change from another branch. When using
--show-pulls on this example (and no other options) the resulting
graph is:
I---X---R---N
Here, the merge commits R and N are included because they pulled the
commits X and R into the base branch, respectively. These merges are
the reason the commits A and B do not appear in the default history.
When --show-pulls is paired with --simplify-merges, the graph
includes all of the necessary information:
.-A---M--. N
/ / \ /
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'
Notice that since M is reachable from R, the edge from N to M was
simplified away. However, N still appears in the history as an
important commit because it "pulled" the change R into the main
branch.
The --simplify-by-decoration option allows you to view only the big
picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits that are not
referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME (in other words, kept
after history simplification rules described above) if (1) they are
referenced by tags, or (2) they change the contents of the paths given on
the command line. All other commits are marked as TREESAME (subject to be
simplified away).
Commit Ordering
By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order.
--date-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise
show commits in the commit timestamp order.
--author-date-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise
show commits in the author timestamp order.
--topo-order
Show no parents before all of its children are shown, and avoid
showing commits on multiple lines of history intermixed.
For example, in a commit history like this:
---1----2----4----7
\ \
3----5----6----8---
where the numbers denote the order of commit timestamps, git rev-list
and friends with --date-order show the commits in the timestamp
order: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.
With --topo-order, they would show 8 6 5 3 7 4 2 1 (or 8 7 4 2 6 5 3
1); some older commits are shown before newer ones in order to avoid
showing the commits from two parallel development track mixed
together.
--reverse
Output the commits chosen to be shown (see Commit Limiting section
above) in reverse order. Cannot be combined with --walk-reflogs.
Object Traversal
These options are mostly targeted for packing of Git repositories.
--no-walk[=(sorted|unsorted)]
Only show the given commits, but do not traverse their ancestors.
This has no effect if a range is specified. If the argument unsorted
is given, the commits are shown in the order they were given on the
command line. Otherwise (if sorted or no argument was given), the
commits are shown in reverse chronological order by commit time.
Cannot be combined with --graph.
--do-walk
Overrides a previous --no-walk.
OUTPUT
By default, or with --ref-action=update, this command produces no output
on success, as refs are updated directly using an atomic transaction.
When using --ref-action=print, the output is usable as input to git
update-ref --stdin. It is of the form:
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch3 ${NEW_branch3_HASH} ${OLD_branch3_HASH}
where the number of refs updated depends on the arguments passed and the
shape of the history being replayed. When using --advance or --revert,
the number of refs updated is always one, but for --onto, it can be one
or more (rebasing multiple branches simultaneously is supported).
There is no stderr output on conflicts; see the EXIT STATUS section
below.
EXIT STATUS
For a successful, non-conflicted replay, the exit status is 0. When the
replay has conflicts, the exit status is 1. If the replay is not able to
complete (or start) due to some kind of error, the exit status is
something other than 0 or 1.
EXAMPLES
To simply rebase mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --onto=target origin/main..mybranch
The refs are updated atomically and no output is produced on success.
To see what would be updated without actually updating:
$ git replay --ref-action=print --onto=target origin/main..mybranch
update refs/heads/mybranch ${NEW_mybranch_HASH} ${OLD_mybranch_HASH}
To cherry-pick the commits from mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --advance=target origin/main..mybranch
Note that the first two examples replay the exact same commits and on top
of the exact same new base, they only differ in that the first updates
mybranch to point at the new commits and the second updates target to
point at them.
What if you have a stack of branches, one depending upon another, and
you'd really like to rebase the whole set?
$ git replay --contained --onto=origin/main origin/main..tipbranch
All three branches (branch1, branch2, and tipbranch) are updated
atomically.
When calling git replay, one does not need to specify a range of commits
to replay using the syntax A..B; any range expression will do:
$ git replay --onto=origin/main ^base branch1 branch2 branch3
This will simultaneously rebase branch1, branch2, and branch3, all
commits they have since base, playing them on top of origin/main. These
three branches may have commits on top of base that they have in common,
but that does not need to be the case.
To revert commits on a branch:
$ git replay --revert=main topic~2..topic
This reverts the last two commits from topic, creating revert commits on
top of main, and updates main to point at the result. This is useful when
commits from topic were previously merged or cherry-picked into main and
need to be undone.
Note
For reverting an entire merge request as a single commit (rather than
commit-by-commit), consider using git merge-tree --merge-base $TIP
HEAD $BASE which can avoid unnecessary merge conflicts.
To replay onto a specific commit while updating a different reference:
$ git replay --onto=112233 --ref=refs/heads/mybranch aabbcc..ddeeff
This replays the range aabbcc..ddeeff onto commit 112233 and updates
refs/heads/mybranch to point at the result. This can be useful when you
want to use bare commit IDs instead of branch names.
CONFIGURATION
replay.refAction
Specifies the default mode for handling reference updates. The value
can be:
update
(default) Update refs directly using an atomic transaction.
print
Output update-ref commands for pipeline use.
See --ref-action.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.56.0 2026-09-27 git-replay(1)
git 2.56.0 - Generated Thu Oct 1 16:45:27 CDT 2026