DEV Community: Matt seymour

Making git log prettier

Matt seymour — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 08:09:45 +0000

Git without saying is a fantastic tool; but git log by default is a little ugly and actually sometimes can be a little difficult to read branches and merges quickly and accurately.

Here is an example output of basic git log:

Hmm, well we have a list of commits that's useful. But what about when we want to see a log of two branches or where a branch starts and ends. It's a little confusing.

Lets see if we can improve git log by writing a new alias git graph.

git config --global alias.graph "log --pretty --color --decorate --graph"

Command break down:

git config - the git config command
--global - this is going to be a global config change. You will be able to access this command in all projects.
alias.graph - we are going to be adding to the alias section an alias called graph. If you look in ~/.gitconfig later you will see the command.
"log --pretty --color --decorate --graph" - the git command we will run when the alias is called.

To run the new alias we now run the command:

git graph

From the screen shot below you now see clearly see the points where merges and branches take place.

With so much doom and gloom about at the moment lets all share something positive.

Matt seymour — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 08:26:09 +0000

Unless you have been living under a hill for the last couple of months; you may have heard lots of doom and gloom stories. Let us share some positive and good news with each other.

This may or may not be tech-related. Let's be positive.

Stay safe.

Hi, I'm {{ Matt }}

Matt seymour — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 21:06:07 +0000

I have been coding for 10 (+/-1) years.

You can find me on Twitter as @_mattseymour

I live in Bath, UK.

I work for Envelop Risk as a senior software engineering

I mostly program in these languages: ['python', 'javascript', 'sql'].

I am currently learning more about ['go', 'elixir'].

Nice to meet you.