git show HEAD^ doesn't seem to be working. Is this normal?

Question

I'm using Zsh and and trying to run git show for a project to see my revision history. If I do

git show HEAD

it works fine showing me my last commit, however the following commands don't work

[master↑5⚡]:~/project $ git show HEAD^ 
zsh: no matches found: HEAD^
[master↑5⚡]:~/project $ git show HEAD^^
zsh: no matches found: HEAD^^

However this does work

git HEAD~1

Am I doing something wrong here with git show HEAD^^?

git version 1.7.4.5

Christopher · Answer 1 · 2013-07-29T16:37:45.763

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Instead of escaping or quoting the caret, you could just tell zsh to stop bailing on the command when it fails to match a glob pattern. Put this option in your .zshrc:

setopt NO_NOMATCH

That option stops zsh from aborting commands if glob-matching fails. git show HEAD^ will work properly, and you needn't escape the caret. Furthermore, globbing and the ^ event designator will still work the way you expect.

To answer dolzenko's question in comments, you can get git log ^production master (which is, coincidentally, also exactly what git's 'double dot' syntax does: git log production..master) to work by disabling extended globbing:

setopt NO_EXTENDED_GLOB

Of course, you might actually rely on extended globbing and not know it. I recommend reading about what it does before disabling it.

edited Jul 29 '13 at 16:37

answered May 31 '13 at 19:45

Christopher

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Do you know why it doesn't work for things like, e.g. `git log ^production master --no-merges`? – Ev Dolzhenko Jul 29 '13 at 14:19
@dolzenko: Edited the answer. If you don't want to turn off extended globbing, just use the double dot syntax. – Christopher Jul 29 '13 at 16:38
Working link for extended globbing article: https://www.refining-linux.org/archives/37-ZSH-Gem-2-Extended-globbing-and-expansion.html – rgin Nov 07 '19 at 09:59

score 32 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

32

The carat (^) has special meaning in Bash and Zsh.

You'll need to escape it or quote it:

% git show HEAD\^

% git show 'HEAD^^'

edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Community

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answered May 23 '11 at 00:51

johnsyweb

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(But honestly, in most cases it's easier to use `~` syntax unless you need something other than the first parents.) – Amber May 23 '11 at 01:02
TIL about the `HEAD~` syntax. Blew my mind, thanks @Amber! – cdpalmer Sep 17 '15 at 06:00

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 13 '13 at 10:21

9

You can also use noglob.

% noglob git show HEAD^

(or make an alias for noglob git)

answered Jun 13 '13 at 10:21

mb14

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git show HEAD^ doesn't seem to be working. Is this normal?

3 Answers3

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