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GIT-CHERRY(1) Git Manual GIT-CHERRY(1)
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 git-cherry-pick(1), git-am(1) or 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
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:
| * 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
git-patch-id(1)
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.42.0 2023-08-21 GIT-CHERRY(1)