How can I get a list of Git branches, ordered by m

Question

I want to get a list of all the branches in a Git repository with the "freshest" branches at the top, where the "freshest" branch is the one that's been committed to most recently (and is, therefore, more likely to be one I want to pay attention to).

Is there a way I can use Git to either (a) sort the list of branches by latest commit, or (b) get a list of branches together with each one's last-commit date, in some kind of machine-readable format?

Worst case, I could always run git branch to get a list of all the branches, parse its output, and then git log -n 1 branchname --format=format:%ci for each one, to get each branch's commit date. But this will run on a Windows box, where spinning up a new process is relatively expensive, so launching the Git executable once per branch could get slow if there are a lot of branches. Is there a way to do all this with a single command?

Answer 1

FYI, if you'd like to get a list of recently checked out branches (as opposed to recently committed) you can use git's reflog:

$ git reflog | egrep -io "moving from ([^[:space:]]+)" | awk '{ print $3 }' | head -n5
master
stable
master
some-cool-feature
feature/improve-everything

See also: How can I get a list of git branches that I've recently checked out?

Answer 2

I had the same problem, so I wrote a Ruby gem called Twig. It lists branches in chronological order (newest first), and can also let you set a max age so that you don't list all branches (if you have a lot of them). For example:

$ twig

                              issue  status       todo            branch
                              -----  ------       ----            ------
2013-01-26 18:00:21 (7m ago)  486    In progress  Rebase          optimize-all-the-things
2013-01-26 16:49:21 (2h ago)  268    In progress  -               whitespace-all-the-things
2013-01-23 18:35:21 (3d ago)  159    Shipped      Test in prod  * refactor-all-the-things
2013-01-22 17:12:09 (4d ago)  -      -            -               development
2013-01-20 19:45:42 (6d ago)  -      -            -               master

It also lets you store custom properties for each branch, e.g., ticket id, status, todos, and filter the list of branches according to these properties. More info: http://rondevera.github.io/twig/

Answer 3

Here's a little script that I use to switch between recent branchs:

#!/bin/bash
# sudo bash

re='^[0-9]+$'

if [[ "$1" =~ $re ]]; then
    lines="$1"
else
    lines=10
fi
branchs="$(git recent | tail -n $lines | nl)"
branchs_nf="$(git recent-nf | tail -n $lines | nl)"
echo "$branchs"

# Prompt which server to connect to
max="$(echo "$branchs" | wc -l)"
index=
while [[ ! ( "$index" =~ ^[0-9]+$ && "$index" -gt 0 && "$index" -le "$max" ) ]]; do
    echo -n "Checkout to: " 
    read index
done

branch="$( echo "$branchs_nf" | sed -n "${index}p" | awk '{ print $NF }' )"
git co $branch
clear

Using those two aliases

recent = for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format=' %(color:blue) %(authorname) %(color:yellow)%(refname:short)%(color:reset)'
recent-nf = for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format=' %(authorname) %(refname:short)'

Just call that in a git repo and it will show you the last N branches (10 by default) and a number aside each. Input the number of the branch and it checks out:

Answer 4

git 2.7 (Q4 2015) will introduce branch sorting using directly git branch:
See commit aa3bc55, commit aedcb7d, commit 1511b22, commit f65f139, ... (23 Sep 2015), commit aedcb7d, commit 1511b22, commit ca41799 (24 Sep 2015), and commit f65f139, ... (23 Sep 2015) by Karthik Nayak (KarthikNayak).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 7f11b48, 15 Oct 2015)}

In particular, commit aedcb7d:

branch.c: use 'ref-filter' APIs

Make 'branch.c' use 'ref-filter' APIs for iterating through refs sorting. This removes most of the code used in 'branch.c' replacing it with calls to the 'ref-filter' library.

It adds the option --sort=<key>:

Sort based on the key given.
Prefix - to sort in descending order of the value.

You may use the --sort=<key> option multiple times, in which case the last key becomes the primary key.

The keys supported are the same as those in git for-each-ref.
Sort order defaults to sorting based on the full refname (including refs/... prefix). This lists detached HEAD (if present) first, then local branches and finally remote-tracking branches.

Here:

git branch --sort=-committerdate 

Or (see below with Git 2.19)

# if you are sure to /always/ want to see branches ordered by commits:
git config --global branch.sort -committerdate
git branch

---

See also commit 9e46833 (30 Oct 2015) by Karthik Nayak (KarthikNayak).
Helped-by: Junio C Hamano (gitster).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 415095f, 03 Nov 2015)}

When sorting as per numerical values (e.g. --sort=objectsize) there is no fallback comparison when both refs hold the same value. This can cause unexpected results (i.e. the order of listing refs with equal values cannot be pre-determined) as pointed out by Johannes Sixt ($gmane/280117).

Hence, fallback to alphabetical comparison based on the refname whenever the other criterion is equal.

$ git branch --sort=objectsize

*  (HEAD detached from fromtag)
      branch-two
      branch-one
      master

---

With Git 2.19, the sort order can be set by default.
git branch supports a config branch.sort, like git tag, which already had a config tag.sort.
See commit 560ae1c (16 Aug 2018) by Samuel Maftoul (``).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit d89db6f, 27 Aug 2018)}

branch.sort:

This variable controls the sort ordering of branches when displayed by git-branch.
Without the "--sort=<value>" option provided, the value of this variable will be used as the default.

---

To list remote branches, use git branch -r --sort=objectsize. The -r flag causes it to list remote branches instead of local branches.

Answer 5

I pipe the output from the accepted answer into dialog, to give me an interactive list:

#!/bin/bash

TMP_FILE=/tmp/selected-git-branch

eval `resize`
dialog --title "Recent Git Branches" --menu "Choose a branch" $LINES $COLUMNS $(( $LINES - 8 )) $(git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(refname:short) %(committerdate:short)') 2> $TMP_FILE

if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
    git checkout $(< $TMP_FILE)
fi

rm -f $TMP_FILE

clear

Save as (e.g.) ~/bin/git_recent_branches.sh and chmod +x it. Then git config --global alias.rb '!git_recent_branches.sh' to give me a new git rb command.

Answer 6

git for-each-ref --sort=committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(HEAD) %(color:yellow)%(refname:short)%(color:reset) - %(color:red)%(objectname:short)%(color:reset) - %(contents:subject) - %(authorname) (%(color:green)%(committerdate:relative)%(color:reset))' this is that you need