As a web developer, checking git log is a daily routine. But if we use simple git log without any option, the result is using too much space with their layout.
So what if we can create our git log to give beautiful output like this?
To get git log beautifully like that, we need to add options on git log command, like this
git log --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h %Cred%ad %Cblue%an%Cgreen%d %Creset%s' --date=short
But, do we need to write all that long command every time we want to see a beautiful git log? That’s will be a troublesome. So this is when we need to use bash alias.
Bash Aliases
That’s exactly what we need! Now, how to make bash alias for that? Let me tell you how to do it for Linux.
The first thing to do is create a~/.bash_aliases
(if it’s not already) with touch ~/.bash_aliases
. Open it, and insert the alias definition there. For now, insert this alias:
alias gitlog="git log --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h %Cred%ad %Cblue%an%Cgreen%d %Creset%s' --date=short"
Save it and close the file. Next step is open ~/.bashrc
and add or uncomment the following lines (if it is not already).
if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi
Save it and close the file. Now, the alias is not yet working as expected until you re-sourcing the ~/.bashrc
or restart the terminal. So we resourcing the ~/.bashrc
with this command: . ~/.bashrc
Now, when you write gitlog
, the bash will run this long command for you
git log --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h %Cred%ad %Cblue%an%Cgreen%d %Creset%s' --date=short
That’s beautiful, right?