How to reference the initial commit?

by

Do not use git-log for scripting: use either git-rev-list, or git-log with specified custom format (--format=*<sth>* option).

There is additional problem with your question: there can exist more than one such TAIL root commit (parentless commit) in a repository (even if we discount disconnected branches, such as ‘html’, ‘man’ and ‘todo’ in git.git repository). This is usually result of joining separate projects in one, or using subtree merge of separately developed subproject.

For example git repository has 6 root commits: git-gui, gitk (subtree-merged), gitweb (merged in, no longer developed separately), git mail tools (merged very early in project history), and p4-fast-export (perhaps accidental). That is not counting roots of ‘html and ‘man’ branches, “convenience” branches which contains pre-generated documentation, and ‘todo’ branch with TODO list and scripts.

If you have git 1.7.4.2 or newer, you can use the --max-parents option:

$ git rev-list --max-parents=0 HEAD

Otherwise, you can get list of all parentless (root) commits accessible from current branch using:

$ git rev-list --parents HEAD | egrep "^[a-f0-9]{40}$"

More Related Contents:

  1. How to modify existing, unpushed commit messages?
  2. Message ‘src refspec master does not match any’ when pushing commits in Git
  3. Commit only part of a file in Git
  4. How to change the commit author for one specific commit?
  5. Remove sensitive files and their commits from Git history
  6. How do I commit case-sensitive only filename changes in Git?
  7. How can I remove a commit on GitHub? [duplicate]
  8. How do I push amended commit to the remote Git repository?
  9. Edit the root commit in Git?
  10. Undo git reset –hard with uncommitted files in the staging area
  11. How can I recover from an erronous git push -f origin master?
  12. Link to the issue number on GitHub within a commit message
  13. git: Your branch is ahead by X commits
  14. What is a Git commit ID?
  15. How does git commit –amend work, exactly?
  16. How to change the commit author for a single commit?
  17. Remove file from latest commit
  18. How to amend several commits in Git to change author
  19. How to find the commit in which a given file was added?
  20. How do I make a Git commit in the past?
  21. How to amend a commit without changing commit message (reusing the previous one)?
  22. What is a dangling commit and a blob in a Git repository and where do they come from?
  23. Accidentally pushed commit: change git commit message
  24. Git commit that doesn’t override original authors in git blame
  25. How can I revert uncommitted changes including files and folders?
  26. How can I undo a `git commit` locally and on a remote after `git push`
  27. Remove a git commit which has not been pushed
  28. Xcode 9 commit: Couldn’t communicate with helper application
  29. Why does ‘git commit’ not save my changes?
  30. Is it possible to set a git commit to have a timestamp prior to 1970?

Leave a Comment