Clear git log file

git logging delete-file
R C picture R C · Jun 5, 2012 · Viewed 19.6k times · Source

I want to clear the git log files so that the command git log returns nothing. Is this possible? Is this recommended?

Answer

larsks picture larsks · Jun 5, 2012 
      ______________________________    . \  | / .
     /                            / \     \ \ / /
    |                            | ==========  - -    WARNING!
     \____________________________\_/     / / \ \
  ______________________________      \  | / | \      THIS WILL DESTROY
 /                            / \     \ \ / /.   .    YOUR REPOSITORY!
|                            | ==========  - -
 \____________________________\_/     / / \ \    /
      ______________________________   / |\  | /  .
     /                            / \     \ \ / /
    |                            | ==========  -  - -
     \____________________________\_/     / / \ \
                                        .  / | \  .

git log displays the change history of your project. If you really want to discard all of that history, you could...

rm -rf .git
git init

...but there are a relatively small number of situations where that really makes sense.

There aren't any "git log files" that git uses to produce this output; it is iterating over the database of objects that form the history of your project. If you delete the .git directory like this, there's no going back:

  • You will not be able to retrieve previous versions of files from the repository;
  • You will not be able to see how files have changed over time;
  • You will not be able to restore a file you have accidentally deleted.

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