View git log without merge commits

Anshul Goyal picture Anshul Goyal · Mar 11, 2016 · Viewed 35.8k times · Source

I'm trying to view commits made by a specific user, and want to remove any merges done by the user from the output. How can I do so?

I can check for the commits of a user using git log --author=<name>, but can't remove the merge commits in the output.

PS: Merge conflicts do not happen in the workflow of the repo in question, all branches are rebased before merging into master so it is safe to remove the merge commits from the output, and similarly, two feature branches are not merged with one another raising the possiblity.

Answer

0xAX picture 0xAX · Mar 11, 2016

use

git log --author=<name> --no-merges

Additionally the --first-parent option may give useful result for you:

--first-parent Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. This option can give a better overview when viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch, because merges into a topic branch tend to be only about adjusting to updated upstream from time to time, and this option allows you to ignore the individual commits brought in to your history by such a merge. Cannot be combined with --bisect.