How to list branches that contain a given commit?

Question

How can I query git to find out which branches contain a given commit? gitk will usually list the branches, unless there are too many, in which case it just say

Answer 1

From the git-branch manual page:

 git branch --contains 

Only list branches which contain the specified commit (HEAD if not specified). Implies --list.

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 git branch -r --contains 

Lists remote tracking branches as well (as mentioned in user3941992's answer below) that is "local branches that have a direct relationship to a remote branch".

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As noted by Carl Walsh, this applies only to the default refspec

fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

If you need to include other ref namespace (pull request, Gerrit, ...), you need to add that new refspec, and fetch again:

git config --add remote.origin.fetch "+refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*"
git fetch
git branch -r --contains 

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See also this git ready article.

The --contains tag will figure out if a certain commit has been brought in yet into your branch. Perhaps you’ve got a commit SHA from a patch you thought you had applied, or you just want to check if commit for your favorite open source project that reduces memory usage by 75% is in yet.

$ git log -1 tests
commit d590f2ac0635ec0053c4a7377bd929943d475297
Author: Nick Quaranto 
Date:   Wed Apr 1 20:38:59 2009 -0400

    Green all around, finally.

$ git branch --contains d590f2
  tests
* master

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Note: if the commit is on a remote tracking branch, add the -a option.
(as MichielB comments below)

git branch -a --contains 

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MatrixFrog comments that it only shows which branches contain that exact commit.
If you want to know which branches contain an "equivalent" commit (i.e. which branches have cherry-picked that commit) that's git cherry:

Because git cherry compares the changeset rather than the commit id (sha1), you can use git cherry to find out if a commit you made locally has been applied under a different commit id.
For example, this will happen if you’re feeding patches via email rather than pushing or pulling commits directly.

           __*__*__*__*__> 
          /
fork-point
          \__+__+__-__+__+__-__+__> 

(Here, the commits marked '-' wouldn't show up with git cherry, meaning they are already present in .)