Git - how do I view the change history of a method/function?

objective-c git function methods history
Erik B picture Erik B · Jan 24, 2011 · Viewed 26.4k times · Source

So I found the question about how to view the change history of a file, but the change history of this particular file is huge and I'm really only interested in the changes of a particular method. So would it be possible to see the change history for just that particular method?

I know this would require git to analyze the code and that the analysis would be different for different languages, but method/function declarations look very similar in most languages, so I thought maybe someone has implemented this feature.

The language I'm currently working with is Objective-C and the SCM I'm currently using is git, but I would be interested to know if this feature exists for any SCM/language.

Answer

eckes picture eckes · Nov 27, 2015

Recent versions of git log learned a special form of the -L parameter:

-L :<funcname>:<file>

Trace the evolution of the line range given by "<start>,<end>" (or the function name regex <funcname>) within the <file>. You may not give any pathspec limiters. This is currently limited to a walk starting from a single revision, i.e., you may only give zero or one positive revision arguments. You can specify this option more than once.
...
If “:<funcname>” is given in place of <start> and <end>, it is a regular expression that denotes the range from the first funcname line that matches <funcname>, up to the next funcname line. “:<funcname>” searches from the end of the previous -L range, if any, otherwise from the start of file. “^:<funcname>” searches from the start of file.

In other words: if you ask Git to git log -L :myfunction:path/to/myfile.c, it will now happily print the change history of that function.

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