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git-cherry (draft)
NAME
git-cherry - Find commits yet to be applied to upstream
SYNOPSIS
git cherry [-v] [<upstream> [<head> [<limit>]]]
DESCRIPTION
Determine whether there are commits in <head>..<upstream> that are equivalent to those in the range <limit>..<head>.
The equivalence test is based on the diff, after removing whitespace and line numbers. git-cherry therefore detects when commits have been “copied” by means of linkgit:git-cherry-pick[1], linkgit:git-am[1] or linkgit:git-rebase[1].
Outputs the SHA1 of every commit in <limit>..<head>, prefixed with - for commits that have an equivalent in <upstream>, and + for commits that do not.
OPTIONS
-v-
Show the commit subjects next to the SHA1s.
<upstream>-
Upstream branch to search for equivalent commits. Defaults to the upstream branch of HEAD.
<head>-
Working branch; defaults to HEAD.
<limit>-
Do not report commits up to (and including) limit.
EXAMPLES
Patch workflows
git-cherry is frequently used in patch-based workflows (see linkgit:gitworkflows[7]) to determine if a series of patches has been applied by the upstream maintainer. In such a workflow you might create and send a topic branch like this:
$ git checkout -b topic origin/master
# work and create some commits
$ git format-patch origin/master
$ git send-email ... 00*
Later, you can see whether your changes have been applied by saying (still on topic):
$ git fetch # update your notion of origin/master
$ git cherry -v
Concrete example
In a situation where topic consisted of three commits, and the maintainer applied two of them, the situation might look like:
$ git log --graph --oneline --decorate --boundary origin/master...topic
* 7654321 (origin/master) upstream tip commit
[... snip some other commits ...]
* cccc111 cherry-pick of C
* aaaa111 cherry-pick of A
[... snip a lot more that has happened ...]
| * cccc000 (topic) commit C
| * bbbb000 commit B
| * aaaa000 commit A
|/
o 1234567 branch point
In such cases, git-cherry shows a concise summary of what has yet to be applied:
$ git cherry origin/master topic
- cccc000... commit C
+ bbbb000... commit B
- aaaa000... commit A
Here, we see that the commits A and C (marked with -) can be dropped from your topic branch when you rebase it on top of origin/master, while the commit B (marked with +) still needs to be kept so that it will be sent to be applied to origin/master.
Using a limit
The optional <limit> is useful in cases where your topic is based on other work that is not in upstream. Expanding on the previous example, this might look like:
$ git log --graph --oneline --decorate --boundary origin/master...topic
* 7654321 (origin/master) upstream tip commit
[... snip some other commits ...]
* cccc111 cherry-pick of C
* aaaa111 cherry-pick of A
[... snip a lot more that has happened ...]
| * cccc000 (topic) commit C
| * bbbb000 commit B
| * aaaa000 commit A
| * 0000fff (base) unpublished stuff F
[... snip ...]
| * 0000aaa unpublished stuff A
|/
o 1234567 merge-base between upstream and topic
By specifying base as the limit, you can avoid listing commits between base and topic:
$ git cherry origin/master topic base
- cccc000... commit C
+ bbbb000... commit B
- aaaa000... commit A
SEE ALSO
linkgit:git-patch-id[1]
GIT
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite