On GitHub API - what is the best way to get the last commit message associated with each file?

Question

So far as I understand it, messages are associated with commits. But when you look at a repo on GitHub it helpfully lists the message by each file, for when it was last changed.

Answer 1

In search of building permanent links, I found one of the easiest way to retrieve the commit sha is to actually parse the html page.

Benefits:

• all file/folder pages in a repository have it, even the root
• single HTTP call
• no auth login needed
• will use the right branch (some don't use master as default)
• works on branches too

There is a link called Permalink on every file page. If you are looking for ways to identify that link there is the class .js-permalink-shortcut and also the data-hotkey="y" attribute, as described in Getting permanent links to files - Github.

Permalink

So in this example the sha is a6f4038336ff41463ad527b4ff4fda45642ebc6d.

Note, it will always be rendered, even if you are already on that commit.

In case somebody likes to build a permalink from it, the url hash (e.g. line references like #L437-L441) needs to be kept (appended) manually.