GIT\-REFLOG

Section: Git Manual (1)
Updated: 2021-03-26
Page Index

NAME

git-reflog - Manage reflog information

SYNOPSIS

git reflog <subcommand> <options>

DESCRIPTION

The command takes various subcommands, and different options depending on the subcommand:

git reflog [show] [log-options] [<ref>]
git reflog expire [--expire=<time>] [--expire-unreachable=<time>]
        [--rewrite] [--updateref] [--stale-fix]
        [--dry-run | -n] [--verbose] [--all [--single-worktree] | <refs>...:]
git reflog delete [--rewrite] [--updateref]
        [--dry-run | -n] [--verbose] ref@{specifier}...:
git reflog exists <ref>

Reference logs, or "reflogs", record when the tips of branches and other references were updated in the local repository. Reflogs are useful in various Git commands, to specify the old value of a reference. For example, HEAD@{2} means "where HEAD used to be two moves ago", master@{one.week.ago} means "where master used to point to one week ago in this local repository", and so on. See gitrevisions(7) for more details.

This command manages the information recorded in the reflogs.

The "show" subcommand (which is also the default, in the absence of any subcommands) shows the log of the reference provided in the command-line (or HEAD, by default). The reflog covers all recent actions, and in addition the HEAD reflog records branch switching. git reflog show is an alias for git log -g --abbrev-commit --pretty=oneline; see git-log(1) for more information.

The "expire" subcommand prunes older reflog entries. Entries older than expire time, or entries older than expire-unreachable time and not reachable from the current tip, are removed from the reflog. This is typically not used directly by end users --- instead, see git-gc(1).

The "delete" subcommand deletes single entries from the reflog. Its argument must be an exact entry (e.g. "git reflog delete master@{2}"). This subcommand is also typically not used directly by end users.

The "exists" subcommand checks whether a ref has a reflog. It exits with zero status if the reflog exists, and non-zero status if it does not.

OPTIONS

Options for show

git reflog show accepts any of the options accepted by git log.

Options for expire

--all

: Process the reflogs of all references.

--single-worktree

: By default when --all is specified, reflogs from all working trees are processed. This option limits the processing to reflogs from the current working tree only.

--expire=<time>

: Prune entries older than the specified time. If this option is not specified, the expiration time is taken from the configuration setting gc.reflogExpire, which in turn defaults to 90 days. --expire=all prunes entries regardless of their age; --expire=never turns off pruning of reachable entries (but see --expire-unreachable).

--expire-unreachable=<time>

: Prune entries older than <time> that are not reachable from the current tip of the branch. If this option is not specified, the expiration time is taken from the configuration setting gc.reflogExpireUnreachable, which in turn defaults to 30 days. --expire-unreachable=all prunes unreachable entries regardless of their age; --expire-unreachable=never turns off early pruning of unreachable entries (but see --expire).

--updateref

: Update the reference to the value of the top reflog entry (i.e. <ref>@{0}) if the previous top entry was pruned. (This option is ignored for symbolic references.)

--rewrite

: If a reflog entry's predecessor is pruned, adjust its "old" SHA-1 to be equal to the "new" SHA-1 field of the entry that now precedes it.

--stale-fix

: Prune any reflog entries that point to "broken commits". A broken commit is a commit that is not reachable from any of the reference tips and that refers, directly or indirectly, to a missing commit, tree, or blob object.
This computation involves traversing all the reachable objects, i.e. it has the same cost as git prune. It is primarily intended to fix corruption caused by garbage collecting using older versions of Git, which didn't protect objects referred to by reflogs.

-n, --dry-run

: Do not actually prune any entries; just show what would have been pruned.

--verbose

: Print extra information on screen.

Options for delete

git reflog delete accepts options --updateref, --rewrite, -n, --dry-run, and --verbose, with the same meanings as when they are used with expire.

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite