Using Git, show all commits that are in one branch, but not the other(s)

Question

I have an old branch, which I would like to delete. However, before doing so, I want to check that all commits made to this branch were at some point merged into some other branch. Thus, I'd like to see all commits made to my current branch which have not been applied to any other branch [or, if this is not possible without some scripting, how does one see all commits in one branch which have not been applied to another given branch?].

Answer 1

To see a list of which commits are on one branch but not another, use git log:

git log --no-merges oldbranch ^newbranch

...that is, show commit logs for all commits on oldbranch that are not on newbranch. You can list multiple branches to include and exclude, e.g.

git log  --no-merges oldbranch1 oldbranch2 ^newbranch1 ^newbranch2

Note: on Windows command prompt (not Powershell) ^ is an escape key, so it needs to be escaped with another ^:

git log --no-merges oldbranch ^^newbranch

Answer 2

You probably just want

git branch --contains branch-to-delete

This will list all branches which contain the commits from "branch-to-delete". If it reports more than just "branch-to-delete", the branch has been merged.

Your alternatives are really just rev-list syntax things. e.g. git log one-branch..another-branch shows everything that one-branch needs to have everything another-branch has.

You may also be interested in git show-branch as a way to see what's where.

Answer 3

To show the commits in oldbranch but not in newbranch:

git log newbranch..oldbranch

To show the diff by these commits (note there are three dots):

git diff newbranch...oldbranch

Here is the doc with a diagram illustration https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Revision-Selection#Commit-Ranges

Answer 4

For those still looking for a simple answer, check out git cherry. It compares actual diffs instead of commit hashes. That means it accommodates commits that have been cherry picked or rebased.

First checkout the branch you want to delete:

git checkout [branch-to-delete]

then use git cherry to compare it to your main development branch:

git cherry -v master

Example output:

+ 8a14709d08c99c36e907e47f9c4dacebeff46ecb Commit message
+ b30ccc3fb38d3d64c5fef079a761c7e0a5c7da81 Another commit message
- 85867e38712de930864c5edb7856342e1358b2a0 Yet another message

Note: The -v flag is to include the commit message along with the SHA hash.

Lines with the '+' in front are in the branch-to-delete, but not the master branch. Those with a '-' in front have an equivalent commit in master.

For JUST the commits that aren't in master, combine cherry pick with grep:

git cherry -v master | grep "^\+"

Example output:

+ 8a14709d08c99c36e907e47f9c4dacebeff46ecb Commit message
+ b30ccc3fb38d3d64c5fef079a761c7e0a5c7da81 Another commit message

Answer 5

While some of the answers posted here will help find what you seek, the following sub-command of git branch is a more suitable solution for your task.

--merged is used to find all branches which can be safely deleted, since those branches are fully contained by HEAD.

While in master one could run the command to enumerate the branches one could safely remove, like so:

git branch --merged
  develop
  fpg_download_links
* master
  master_merge_static

# Delete local and remote tracking branches you don't want
git branch -d fpg_download_links
git push origin :fpg_download_links
git branch -d master_merge_static
git push origin :master_merge_static

# There is also a flag to specify remote branches in the output
git branch --remotes --merged

Answer 6

jimmyorr's answer does not work on Windows. it helps to use --not instead of ^ like so:

git log oldbranch --not newbranch --no-merges

Answer 7

If it is one (single) branch that you need to check, for example if you want that branch 'B' is fully merged into branch 'A', you can simply do the following:

$ git checkout A
$ git branch -d B

git branch -d <branchname> has the safety that "The branch must be fully merged in HEAD."

Caution: this actually deletes the branch B if it is merged into A.

Answer 8

I'd like to count the commits too, so here's how to do that:

Count how many commits are on the current branch (HEAD), but NOT on master:

git log --oneline ^master HEAD | wc -l

wc -l means "word count"--count the number of 'l'ines.

And of course to see the whole log messages, as other answers have given:

git log ^master HEAD

...or in a condensed --oneline form:

git log --oneline ^master HEAD

If you don't want to count merge commits either, you can exclude those with --no-merges:

git log --oneline --no-merges ^master HEAD | wc -l

etc.

Answer 9

You can use this simple script to see commits that are not merged

#!/bin/bash
# Show commits that exists only on branch and not in current
# Usage:
#   git branch-notmerge <branchname>
#
# Setup git alias
#   git config alias.branch-notmerge [path/to/this/script]
grep -Fvf <(git log --pretty=format:'%H - %s') <(git log $1 --pretty=format:'%H - %s')

You can use also tool git-wtf that will display state of branches

Answer 10

Show commits and commit contents from other-branch that are not in your current branch:

git show @..other-branch

Additionally you can apply the commits from other-branch directly to your current branch:

git cherry-pick @..other-branch