How do I get the Git commit count?

Question

I'd like to get the number of commits of my Git repository, a bit like SVN revision numbers.

The goal is to use it as a unique, incrementing build number.

I currently do like that, on Unix/Cygwin/msysGit:

git log --pretty=format:'' | wc -l

But I feel it's a bit of a hack.

Is there a better way to do that? It would be cool if I actually didn't need wc or even Git, so it could work on a bare Windows. Just read a file or a directory structure...

You may find interesting answers here: [what is the git equivalent for revision number?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4120001/what-is-the-git-equivalent-for-revision-number) — Sebastien Varrette, Jul 26 '12 at 10:34
`git rev-list HEAD --count` [git rev-list](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-rev-list.html) — Jake Berger, Feb 05 '13 at 18:46
@jberger: I think your comment should be converted to an answer. — utapyngo, Mar 08 '13 at 06:29
@utapyngo: given the 13 other answers, I knew it'd be buried. I've [posted it here](http://stackoverflow.com/a/15315094/495132) then. — Jake Berger, Mar 09 '13 at 19:46

Benjamin Atkin · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-17T19:37:55.950

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To get a commit count for a revision (HEAD, master, a commit hash):

git rev-list --count <revision>

To get the commit count across all branches:

git rev-list --all --count

I recommend against using this for build identifier, but if you must, it's probably best to use the count for the branch you're building against. That way the same revision will always have the same number. If you use the count for all branches, activity on other branches could change the number.

edited Nov 17 '15 at 19:37

answered Oct 31 '10 at 03:21

Benjamin Atkin

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`git shortlog | grep -E '^[ ]+\w+' | wc -l` if you want to get total number and `git shortlog | grep -E '^[^ ]'` if you want to get commits number for every contributor. – skalee May 24 '11 at 18:58
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Thanks for pointing out `wc -l`. Minimalism FTW. I incorporated it into my answer. – Benjamin Atkin May 25 '11 at 21:01
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Thanks this helped me a lot. However, there are a lot of answers here which I can clarify (as no-one else has). To return the total number of commits for your **current branch:** `git shortlog | grep -E '^[ ]+\w+' | wc -l` To return the total number of commits for **all your branches:** `git rev-list --all | wc -l` – ben.snape Jan 15 '13 at 11:13
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This solution is both hacky (similar to the `git log --pretty=format:'' | wc -l` approach given in the original question) and incorrect: you can see this by inverting the match (`git shortlog | grep -Ev '^[ ]+\w+'`) and seeing that e.g. commits with no message (i.e., "") are not counted. Using `git rev-list HEAD --count` is both more succinct and more accurate. – ctrueden Mar 01 '13 at 22:55
@ctrueden if you have a better solution please post your own answer. Don't post pedantic comments to everyone else's. Based on what your saying, mine will fail less than one percent of the time. It's very rare not to have a message in a commit. – Benjamin Atkin Mar 13 '13 at 01:55
@ctrueden The earliest reference to your solution seems to be from last year. I think it must be a newer feature. My answer was posted in 2010. I don't see any good reason for you to post a snarky comment to my answer. – Benjamin Atkin Mar 13 '13 at 01:58
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@BenAtkin: My apologies; it was not my intent to be offensive, merely factual. Point taken about the date of the response. At the time, your solution may very well have been the best available one. But I stand by my statement that `git rev-list HEAD --count` is a better solution now. – ctrueden Mar 23 '13 at 16:36
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@ctrueden OK, I see how at this point a new answer is unlikely to get voted to the top, and why you used this strategy instead of adding a new answer. I still think you ought to try both, though. I added your answer to the top of mine. – Benjamin Atkin Mar 25 '13 at 22:20
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How to get the number of commits on the remote repository/branch? – Kostanos Aug 16 '13 at 22:53
In addition, ```git rev-list --all --count``` works for all branches. – Eneko Alonso Oct 29 '13 at 15:33
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Added an answer as well and works also with old versions: `git log --oneline | wc -l` – Jimmy Kane Feb 06 '14 at 17:33
`rev-list` will return count of only those commits which are reachable from HEAD, not all commits. – tejasbubane Oct 07 '15 at 10:53
@tejasbubane from the question: "The goal is to use it as a unique, incrementing build number." It also mentions SVN. I think using the count for the branch the build is being done on is appropriate. If it isn't HEAD, just change HEAD to the name of the branch. – Benjamin Atkin Nov 14 '15 at 02:15
@tejasbubane thanks! updated the answer. also de-emphasized the body of the question post. I think most are looking for answers to the title of the question post. – Benjamin Atkin Nov 17 '15 at 19:40
git config --global alias.count "rev-list --count" for short `git count` – qxo Nov 01 '16 at 07:59
*If you use the count for all branches, activity on other branches could change the number* - How and when is it possible? – kyb Jul 30 '17 at 15:09

score 174 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 23 '10 at 17:28

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git shortlog is one way.

answered Apr 23 '10 at 17:28

Rayne

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Ty. This worked for me when counting commits in a range; git shortlog sha1..sha2 – RJFalconer Apr 13 '11 at 11:07
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Yep, the first line of git shortlog has the number of commits in it. Problem solved. – Robert Massaioli Jul 31 '11 at 14:23
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The number of commits is grouped by committer, not so good. Can count lines in git shortlog, but this doesn't work over ssh without a terminal for some reason (pager?). The asker's original solution is the best! git log --pretty=format:'' | wc -l – Sam Watkins Feb 04 '12 at 07:15
I agree; `git shortlog` by itself does not address the original question of *total* number of commits (not grouped by author). – ctrueden Mar 01 '13 at 22:51
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However, I would suggest `git rev-list HEAD --count` rather than the original approach given in the OP. In my tests, `git log --pretty=format:'' | wc -l` is off by one. – ctrueden Mar 01 '13 at 22:59
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@ctrueden `git log --oneline | wc -l` isn't off by one (OS X 10.8.5). – Andy Stewart Mar 24 '15 at 09:37

score 123 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 09 '13 at 19:43

git rev-list HEAD --count

git rev-list

git rev-list <commit> : List commits that are reachable by following the parent links from the given commit (in this case, HEAD).

--count : Print a number stating how many commits would have been listed, and suppress all other output.

score 116 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 16 '19 at 11:07

116

This command returns count of commits grouped by committers:

git shortlog -s

Output:

14 John lennon
9  Janis Joplin

You may want to know that the -s argument is the contraction form of --summary.

edited Jul 16 '19 at 11:07

Valerio Bozz

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answered Nov 14 '11 at 07:52

Alex Pliutau

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`git shortlog` by itself does not address the original question of *total* number of commits (not grouped by author). Use `git rev-list HEAD --count` instead. – ctrueden Mar 01 '13 at 22:58
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Awesome! You can sort it by `| sort -n` too – Mohsen Jul 24 '13 at 20:00

score 54 · Answer 5 · edited Nov 08 '11 at 09:10

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If you’re looking for a unique and still quite readable identifier for commits, git describe might be just the thing for you.

edited Nov 08 '11 at 09:10

svrist

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answered Mar 24 '09 at 14:08

Bombe

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That could work and would be more easy to use than a custom-made algo. +1 – VonC Mar 24 '09 at 14:23
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I didn't know git describe. This little number between the tag name and the sha1 is just what I was looking for. Thank you. – Splo Mar 25 '09 at 00:33
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Take a look at GIT-VERSION-GEN script and how it is used in git repository, and similar script in Linux kernel sources (and how they are used in Makefile). – Jakub Narębski Mar 27 '09 at 03:30
This gives unique, but not INCREMENTAL id. Doesn't work for me. However Ben Atkin's answer offers commit count, which in practice should be incremental. Aaron Digulla's answer is more sure, but requires also more work. – JOM Jun 30 '11 at 05:25
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Yes, that’s because the *concept* of an *incremental* ID does not make any sense with distributed version control systems. – Bombe Jun 30 '11 at 06:27
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If you get `fatal: No names found, cannot describe anything`, you need to create at least one tag (the count will start from that tag). If the tag is not annotated you should do `git describe --tags` – user2518618 Feb 05 '15 at 10:43

score 37 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 26 '17 at 09:09

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U can just use :

git shortlog -s -n

Result :

 827  user one
    15  user two
     2  Gest

answered Dec 26 '17 at 09:09

demenvil

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score 34 · Answer 7 · edited Nov 12 '17 at 00:59

You are not the first one to think about a "revision number" in Git, but 'wc' is quite dangerous, since commit can be erased or squashed, and the history revisited.

The "revision number" was especially important for Subversion since it was needed in case of merge (SVN1.5 and 1.6 have improved on that front).

You could end up with a pre-commit hook which would include a revision number in the comment, with an algorithm not involving looking up the all history of a branch to determine the correct number.

Bazaar actually came up with such an algorithm , and it may be a good starting point for what you want to do.

(As Bombe's answer points out, Git has actually an algorithm of its own, based on the latest tag, plus the number of commits, plus a bit of an SHA-1 key). You should see (and upvote) his answer if it works for you.

To illustrate Aaron's idea, you can also append the Git commit hash into an application’s "info" file you are distributing with your application.

That way, the about box would look like:

About box

The applicative number is part of the commit, but the 'application’s "info" file' is generated during the packaging process, effectively linking an applicative build number to a technical revision id.

I've updated my script to work with Xcode 3. You can pick up an up to date version from http://gist.github.com/208825. — Abizern, Oct 29 '09 at 22:56

score 22 · Answer 8 · edited Nov 12 '17 at 01:06

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A simple way is:

 git log --oneline | wc -l

oneline ensures that.

edited Nov 12 '17 at 01:06

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 06 '14 at 15:38

Jimmy Kane

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'wc' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. – user815693 Jul 23 '15 at 14:35
Well what system are you using? Is it a UNIX one ?/ – Jimmy Kane Jul 23 '15 at 15:31
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This seems faster too if you have thousands of commits. All other commands take too much time. – Danny Coulombe Jun 13 '17 at 20:49

John Gietzen · Answer 9 · 2016-08-10T23:11:34.430

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To get it into a variable, the easiest way is:

export GIT_REV_COUNT=`git rev-list --all --count`

edited Aug 10 '16 at 23:11

answered Jul 15 '11 at 21:52

John Gietzen

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Indeed, `git rev-list` is the correct tool to use, not `git log` like the other say. – Nayuki Nov 12 '11 at 02:40
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To count the number of commits in the lineage to reach HEAD: git rev-list --first-parent | wc -l – 200_success Jan 07 '13 at 22:54
You don't need `wc -l` just use the `--count` switch: `git rev-list --all --count`. – slm Aug 03 '16 at 02:59
Thanks @slm, I've updated the answer. Although, I suspect the original answer is older than the `--count` switch itself. – John Gietzen Aug 10 '16 at 23:12
@JohnGietzen - oh yeah I figured that 8-), was just adding this detail to help. – slm Aug 11 '16 at 01:03

score 18 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 25 '12 at 07:59

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Git shortlog is one way to get the commit details:

git shortlog -s -n

This will give the number of commits followed by the author name. The -s option removes all the commit messages for each commit that the author made. Remove the same option if you would like to see the commit messages also. The -n option is used for sorting the entire list. Hope this helps.

answered Nov 25 '12 at 07:59

Sri Murthy Upadhyayula

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`git shortlog` by itself does not address the original question of *total* number of commits (not grouped by author). Use `git rev-list HEAD --count` instead. – ctrueden Mar 01 '13 at 23:01

score 8 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 24 '09 at 09:24

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git rev-parse --short HEAD

answered Nov 24 '09 at 09:24

makuchaku

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Produces a hash, whereas a number was requested. – Jesse Glick Sep 17 '14 at 19:57

score 7 · Answer 12 · edited Nov 12 '17 at 01:03

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There's a nice helper script that the Git folks use to help generate a useful version number based on Git describe. I show the script and explain it in my answer to How would you include the current commit id in a Git project's files?.

edited Nov 12 '17 at 01:03

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 24 '09 at 15:22

Pat Notz

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NuclearPeon · Answer 13 · 2020-04-02T20:51:09.490

If you're just using one branch, such as master, I think this would work great:

git rev-list --full-history --all | wc -l

This will only output a number. You can alias it to something like

git revno

to make things really convenient. To do so, edit your .git/config file and add this in:

[alias]
    revno = "!git rev-list --full-history --all | wc -l"

This will not work on Windows. I do not know the equivalent of "wc" for that OS, but writing a Python script to do the counting for you would be a multi-platform solution.

EDIT: Get count between two commits:

I was looking for an answer that would show how to get the number of commits between two arbitrary revisions and didn't see any.

git rev-list --count [older-commit]..[newer-commit]

score 3 · Answer 14 · edited Nov 12 '17 at 01:08

In our company, we moved from SVN to Git. Lack of revision numbers was a big problem!

Do git svn clone, and then tag the last SVN commit by its SVN revision number:

export hr=`git svn find-rev HEAD`
git tag "$hr" -f HEAD

Then you can get the revision number with help of

git describe --tags --long

This command gives something like:

7603-3-g7f4610d

Means: The last tag is 7603 - it's the SVN revision. 3 - is count of commits from it. We need to add them.

So, the revision number can be counted by this script:

expr $(git describe --tags --long | cut -d '-' -f 1) + $(git describe --tags --long | cut -d '-' -f 2)

score 3 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 24 '09 at 13:59

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Generate a number during the build and write it to a file. Whenever you make a release, commit that file with the comment "Build 147" (or whatever the build number currently is). Don't commit the file during normal development. This way, you can easily map between build numbers and versions in Git.

answered Mar 24 '09 at 13:59

Aaron Digulla

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If two distributed developers did this wouldn't their build numbers collide/intersect periodically? What if they both did a build between the same revs of a shared repo, or perhaps collision would only occur if either had changes not committed to the shared repo. Not sure. – hobs Jul 17 '11 at 21:32
Sure but the conflict tells you what to do: Just talk to the other guy or always use higher number. Remember: A number can't magically cure a broken build process. It's just a *reminder* or *hint* that you need to check something. – Aaron Digulla Jul 18 '11 at 12:47
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Ahh, yes, the magic buildno.txt file is committed along with the rest. Good approach for a small team, or a large team that avoids parallel builds. Only place I can think of that it might not work as well is for a large team using a scripted language (python) that doesn't need a build process (to assign a single person to do building). – hobs Jul 19 '11 at 22:08

score 2 · Answer 16 · answered Oct 16 '20 at 10:12

The following command prints the total number of commits on the current branch.

git shortlog -s -n  | awk '{ sum += $1; } END { print sum; }' "$@"

It is made up of two parts:

Print the total logs number grouped by author (git shortlog -s -n)

Example output

  1445  John C
  1398  Tom D
  1376  Chrsitopher P
   166  Justin T
   166  You

Sum up the total commit number of each author, i.e. the first argument of each line, and print the result out (awk '{ sum += $1; } END { print sum; }' "$@")

Using the same example as above it will sum up 1445 + 1398 + 1376 + 166 + 166. Therefore the output will be:
```
  4,551
```

score 2 · Answer 17 · answered Jul 31 '11 at 14:24

2

The one I used to use was:

git log | grep "^commit" | wc -l

Simple but it worked.

answered Jul 31 '11 at 14:24

Robert Massaioli

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it takes one commit message line begining with "commit" to break count. For example: "corrected mistakes and broken tests that I accidentally pushed in last\ncommit" – Paweł Polewicz Jun 06 '12 at 09:38
this is not 100% bullet-proof if you have a a commit message like @PawełPolewicz, but it works the best in my opinion. – FedericoCapaldo Oct 16 '20 at 09:58

score 1 · Answer 18 · answered Sep 17 '14 at 20:51

Using Bash syntax,

$(git rev-list --count HEAD)

looks fine for purely linear history. If you also want to sometimes have “numbers” from branches (based off master), consider:

$(git rev-list --count $(git merge-base master HEAD)).$(git rev-list --count ^master HEAD)

When run from a checkout of master, you get simply 1234.0 or the like. When run from a checkout of a branch you will get something like 1234.13, if there have been 13 commits made on that branch. Obviously this is useful only insofar as you are basing at most one branch off a given master revision.

--first-parent could be added to the micro number to suppress some commits arising only from merging other branches, though it is probably unnecessary.

score 1 · Answer 19 · answered Nov 15 '16 at 10:24

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You can try

git log --oneline | wc -l

or to list all the commits done by the people contributing in the repository

git shortlog -s

answered Nov 15 '16 at 10:24

score 1 · Answer 20 · answered Sep 11 '17 at 09:46

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git config --global alias.count 'rev-list --all --count'

If you add this to your config, you can just reference the command;

git count

answered Sep 11 '17 at 09:46

Robert Pounder

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score 1 · Answer 21 · answered Oct 09 '20 at 20:12

git shortlog by itself does not address the original question of total number of commits (not grouped by author)

That is true, and git rev-list HEAD --count remains the simplest answer.

However, with Git 2.29 (Q4 2020), "git shortlog"^(man) has become more precise.
It has been taught to group commits by the contents of the trailer lines, like "Reviewed-by:", "Coauthored-by:", etc.

See commit 63d24fa, commit 56d5dde, commit 87abb96, commit f17b0b9, commit 47beb37, commit f0939a0, commit 92338c4 (27 Sep 2020), and commit 45d93eb (25 Sep 2020) by Jeff King (peff).
^{(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster -- in commit 2fa8aac, 04 Oct 2020)}

shortlog: allow multiple groups to be specified

^{Signed-off-by: Jeff King}

Now that shortlog supports reading from trailers, it can be useful to combine counts from multiple trailers, or between trailers and authors.
This can be done manually by post-processing the output from multiple runs, but it's non-trivial to make sure that each name/commit pair is counted only once.

This patch teaches shortlog to accept multiple --group options on the command line, and pull data from all of them.

That makes it possible to run:
git shortlog -ns --group=author --group=trailer:co-authored-by  
to get a shortlog that counts authors and co-authors equally.

The implementation is mostly straightforward. The "group" enum becomes a bitfield, and the trailer key becomes a list.
I didn't bother implementing the multi-group semantics for reading from stdin. It would be possible to do, but the existing matching code makes it awkward, and I doubt anybody cares.

The duplicate suppression we used for trailers now covers authors and committers as well (though in non-trailer single-group mode we can skip the hash insertion and lookup, since we only see one value per commit).

There is one subtlety: we now care about the case when no group bit is set (in which case we default to showing the author).
The caller in builtin/log.c needs to be adapted to ask explicitly for authors, rather than relying on shortlog_init(). It would be possible with some gymnastics to make this keep working as-is, but it's not worth it for a single caller.

git shortlog now includes in its man page:

--group=<type>

Group commits based on <type>. If no --group option is specified, the default is author. <type> is one of:

author, commits are grouped by author

committer, commits are grouped by committer (the same as -c)

This is an alias for --group=committer.

git shortlog now also includes in its man page:

If --group is specified multiple times, commits are counted under each value (but again, only once per unique value in that commit). For example, git shortlog --group=author --group=trailer:co-authored-by counts both authors and co-authors.

score 0 · Answer 22 · answered Nov 05 '15 at 14:01

0

Use git shortlog just like this

git shortlog -sn

Or create an alias (for ZSH based terminal)

# show contributors by commits alias gcall="git shortlog -sn"

answered Nov 05 '15 at 14:01

Ahmad Awais

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score 0 · Answer 23 · answered Jan 23 '20 at 15:14

0

How about making an alias ?

alias gc="git rev-list --all --count"      #Or whatever name you wish

answered Jan 23 '20 at 15:14

How do I get the Git commit count?

23 Answers23

`shortlog`: allow multiple groups to be specified

`--group=<type>`

Linked

How do I get the Git commit count?

23 Answers23

shortlog: allow multiple groups to be specified

--group=<type>

Linked

`shortlog`: allow multiple groups to be specified

`--group=<type>`