We use git log for creating RELEASE NOTES (Refer to the script there.)
For example:
git log --pretty feature-kibana..HEAD
commit 7bc8622d5fa46f7cbfb001b45c04fcdb4d55ed0c (HEAD -> qb-1.43, tag: 43.4.7, origin/qb-1.43)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Fri Jan 24 02:18:59 2025 +0000
Finish off Maintenance Script improvements
Last commits for this round of maintenance script operations
Fixes Issue #142
commit 7cb9091831caf8a3f72d9c8de44310f5c9e1ad9e (tag: 43.7.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Fri Jan 24 02:12:42 2025 +0000
Add comments for $smwgParserFeatures (Links In Values feature)
commit ab10ebe10fa294f4a8ce456269107281f2e2de18
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Fri Jan 17 19:08:51 2025 +0000
Maintenance Script update (missed these)
Convert script calls to go through executable
'maintenance/run'
For extensions, use the class naming pattern
'Extension:ClassName'
Fixes Issue #142
commit ca1791040ebf7ea5e7ff4cef04f6c3ef2d56f2d2 (tag: 43.4.6)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Fri Jan 17 19:01:19 2025 +0000
Finish Maintenance Script update
Convert script calls to go through executable
'maintenance/run'
For extensions, use the class naming pattern
'Extension:ClassName'
Fixes Issue #142
commit d624f7b4fbed42033dd8b6da3e786f9c1de53340 (tag: 43.6.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 23:48:54 2025 +0000
A new tool to inspect the git repos on the controller
commit e267f14854957206ba556812038c357e27db0116 (tag: 43.4.5)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 23:48:12 2025 +0000
Update the Update.php role for new Maintenance script ops
Issue #142
commit 9e4de5e18ad148ff47660c6c22b5dbf6ace5c940 (tag: 43.4.4)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 23:46:57 2025 +0000
Update maintenance scripts
Server Performance logging/reporting role
(Probably needs to be eliminated altogether)
Issue #142
commit 278c394ee70a00d86abcf13f434f6677723436b6 (tag: 43.4.3)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 23:45:38 2025 +0000
Update maintenance scripts
showSiteStats and refreshLinks
Issue #142
commit 57c9bb20231e76fed948d22ea93714cff24d53c6 (tag: 43.4.2)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 23:44:01 2025 +0000
Disable metastore maintenance
All maintenance needs to be refactored
Issue #142
Also, this may be affected by upgrading to SMW 5.x
Issue #136
commit 7ad66760bc98bfdf95f7774ad920c669510ca784 (tag: 43.5.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 23:42:08 2025 +0000
Prefer source in composer managed extensions
Use the --prefer-source option to composer
Eliminate the duplicate composer run
Eliminate the removal of a non-existant SMW file (IdeAliases.php)
needed for Issue #136
commit f87b92b261035b4e8f91a169ecf9b286303de61c (tag: 43.4.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 23:32:29 2025 +0000
Update maintenance scripts for MediaWiki 1.40
Fixes Issue #142
commit 4ca775d65b3f64907dd87990af28073d454702fa (tag: 43.3.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 16 22:56:48 2025 +0000
Update MezaCoreExtensions.yml for REL1_43
Use full enableSemantics() call to fix URL pattern
Switch to gerrit because GitHub seems to throttle
SemanticDrilldown 3.05 -> dev-master
SemanticScribunto 2.2.0 -> dev-master
add quotes on SemanticDrilldown version spec
add quotes on SubPageList version spec
commit e2873948a30a02fb56a8be6d40181f76101fad1c (tag: 43.2.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Fri Jan 10 17:45:00 2025 +0000
Create a variable named php_memory_limit defaulting to 128M
PHP normally defaults to 128M so we also default to that.
Templated in the php.ini template of the apache-php role.
Fixes issue #151
commit 51c89233b3279fbdd76c371cbdd5f9b17552d614 (tag: 43.1.2)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Wed Jan 8 01:39:19 2025 +0000
Enable SemanticCompoundQueries
Was 2.2.0
Now 3.x-dev (same as dev-master)
Issue #140
commit d2a87e79e3f039f7c81cc2ca091959698a11d99c (tag: 43.1.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Wed Jan 8 00:43:17 2025 +0000
Use SubPageList dev-master
Fixes issue #138
commit ca17aac64a4c1cd83be7ea4f22ac6b2732bdce06 (tag: 43.0.3)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Tue Jan 7 21:38:15 2025 +0000
Disable or update non-working skins
These skins need a version adjustment or update
to work with REL1_43
- Tweeki
- Medik
Use tags/v4.39.1 for Tweeki
Issue #136
commit cde7d8cfaa866bbcba6de5b32b34f1d94b1134e6 (tag: 43.0.2)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Tue Jan 7 21:09:29 2025 +0000
Disable non-working extensions
These extensions do not work, or need a version adjustment,
to be compatible with REL1_43 and SMW 5.x
- SemanticCompoundQueries
- SemanticDependencyUpdater
- SemanticDrilldown
- SemanticExtraSpecialProperties
- SemanticResultFormats
- SemanticScribunto
- SubPageList
commit 36567d8330bef1a28d923fd0f351f7ef6e26bdd8 (tag: 43.0.1)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Tue Jan 7 21:04:38 2025 +0000
Switch SMW to dev-master
Addresses Issue #137
composer show -a mediawiki/semantic-media-wiki
shows all available composer versions
commit d7d6a88ecebedf8eb2a2d476d26d937696ba2809 (tag: 43.0.0)
Author: Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett@gmail.com>
Date: Tue Jan 7 17:33:33 2025 +0000
Upgrade to REL1_43
Fixes Issue #136
set meza_repository_url to use freephile/meza
set mediawiki_version for core
set mediawiki_default_branch (for extensions)
set php_ius_version to php81
Pretty[edit]
'pretty' is shorthand for various formats that are predefined.
- git log --pretty=oneline
- git log --pretty=short
- git log --pretty=medium
- git log --pretty=full
- git log --pretty=fuller
- git log --pretty=reference
- git log --pretty=email
- git log --pretty=raw
- git log --pretty=format:<string> and git log --pretty=tformat:<string>
When the format name is not recognized (ie. none of the above), and has %placeholder in it, it acts as if --pretty=tformat:<format> were given. This is all to say the --pretty= and --format= are nearly identical ways of saying the same thing.
Commit Formatting[edit]
The format parameter to git log allows you to specify exactly what you want to see in the output.
--pretty=format: is equivalent to --format=
git log -3 --format="* %h - %an: %s" 39.5.0...HEAD
gives output like this:
* 43be9737 - Greg Rundlett: Make wiki config directory group executable * 45658c32 - Greg Rundlett: fix quoting in SMW setupStore shell command * 8a5fde26 - Greg Rundlett: Add Admin rights for SMW
Show the date in 'short' format -in other words YYYY-MM-DD - with %as
git log -3 --format="* %h (%as) - %an: %s" 39.5.0...HEAD
* 43be9737 (2025-08-17) - Greg Rundlett: Make wiki config directory group executable * 45658c32 (2025-08-17) - Greg Rundlett: fix quoting in SMW setupStore shell command * 8a5fde26 (2025-08-16) - Greg Rundlett: Add Admin rights for SMW
Add in ref names (tags / branches) with %d (which stands for decorations)
git log -3 --format="* %h (%as) %d - %an: %s" 39.5.0...HEAD
* 43be9737 (2025-08-17) (HEAD -> main, tag: 43.25.11, origin/main, origin/HEAD) - Greg Rundlett: Make wiki config directory group executable * 45658c32 (2025-08-17) (tag: 43.25.10) - Greg Rundlett: fix quoting in SMW setupStore shell command * 8a5fde26 (2025-08-16) (tag: 43.25.9) - Greg Rundlett: Add Admin rights for SMW
Instead of the default decorations for ref names you get with a simple %d, you can supply your own. Here we prefix tags with v and no space instead of the default 'tag: ' seen above. To use long-hand decoration, you specify %(decorate:) along with four specifications for the prefix, suffix, tag and separator. E.g.
git log -3 --format="* %h (%as) %(decorate:prefix=,suffix=,tag=v,separator= ) - %an: %s" 39.5.0...HEAD
* 43be9737 (2025-08-17) HEAD -> main v43.25.11 origin/main origin/HEAD - Greg Rundlett: Make wiki config directory group executable * 45658c32 (2025-08-17) v43.25.10 - Greg Rundlett: fix quoting in SMW setupStore shell command * 8a5fde26 (2025-08-16) v43.25.9 - Greg Rundlett: Add Admin rights for SMW
Just like %s shows the subject, %b shows the body of the commit message in the log.
git log -3 --format="* %h (%as) %(decorate:prefix=,suffix=,tag=v,separator= ) - %an: %s %b" 39.5.0...HEAD
* 43be9737 (2025-08-17) HEAD -> main v43.25.11 origin/main origin/HEAD - Greg Rundlett: Make wiki config directory group executable Not sure this should be apache owned, but if meza-ansible user is going to have any permission to do anything here then it needs to be group executable * 45658c32 (2025-08-17) v43.25.10 - Greg Rundlett: fix quoting in SMW setupStore shell command * 8a5fde26 (2025-08-16) v43.25.9 - Greg Rundlett: Add Admin rights for SMW Allow access to Special:SemanticMediaWiki for Sysops group.
tformat works just like format with the benefit of adding a terminating newline character after the final output.
git log -3 --pretty=tformat:"* %h (%as) %(decorate:prefix=,suffix=,tag=v,separator= ) - %an: %s %b" 39.5.0...HEAD
same output as above, with a newline after the final item
You also get tformat behavior if you do not specify any 'format' word, but use '%-encoded' formatting strings. Thus, the following is equivalent to the previous example:
git log -3 --pretty="* %h (%as) %(decorate:prefix=,suffix=,tag=v,separator= ) - %an: %s %b" 39.5.0...HEAD
CSV Output for spreadsheets[edit]
By simply formatting your output into a "Comma Separated Values" file, you can easily work with log data in a spreadsheet with LibreOffice Calc. (Note that LibreOffice Calc does not support reading data directly from STDIN, so you can't use process substitution. You must create a (temporary) file from the log, and then open that file with LibreOffice.
git log nasa/main...origin/REL1_43 --date=iso-strict --pretty=format:'"%h","%ad","%an","%s"' --cherry-pick --right-only > meza.log.csv && libreoffice --calc meza.log.csv
Keywords[edit]
If your team writes good commit messages with consistent keywords to describe the type of commits made, you can later easily filter and sort issues for better RELEASE NOTES In the example below, we filter and sort commits based on subjects that start with common actions or keywords.
git log 39.5.0..HEAD --pretty=format:"%s" --no-merges | grep -Ei "^(add|bug|chore|delete|doc|feat|fix|refactor|remove|style|test|update)" | sort
If you have no idea what keywords the team is using, have a look:
git log 39.5.0..HEAD --pretty=format:"%s" --no-merges | awk '{print tolower($1)}' | sort | uniq -c
or for bigger repos, limit the lookback, and sort things numerically in reverse order, showing the top 20
git log --since "2 years ago" --pretty=format:"%s" --no-merges | awk '{print tolower($1)}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20
Comparing branches and foreign (upstream) repos[edit]
As you may know, the triple dot notation means to find the common ancestor. Using that with shortlog allows to quickly find the differences between branches or even 'upstream' repos - especially in conjunction with --cherry-pick --right-only.
This is the command you want if you've ever wondered how GitHub shows you that your fork is 'X commits ahead, Y commits behind' repo ACME and you want to get a quick overview of the situation.
git shortlog nasa/main...origin/REL1_43 --cherry-pick --right-only
Cherry on top[edit]
By using the --cherry-pick option with --right-only, we can omit equivalent commits that appear on both sides.
git log --graph --full-history nasa/main...origin/REL1_43 --color --date=short --pretty=format:"%x1b[31m%h%x09%x1b[32m%d%x1b[0m%x20%ad %s" --cherry-pick --right-only
