Git changelog: how to get all changes up to a specific tag?

Question

Is there an easy way or command to get all git commits up to a specific tag to generate an automatic changelog for a project? I always tag my git repos with a version number like v0.1.0 and for instance would like all commits up to tag v0.1.0.

I've looked through the docs but don't seem to find a useful option or command for it: http://git-scm.com/docs/git-log (is down at the moment by the way)

For instance:

$ git log --oneline --decorate

Shows the tags next to commits. I'd like the same, but only up to specific tag.

Answer 1

You can just do:

git log --oneline --decorate v0.1.0

... to show every commit up to and including v0.1.0. Of course, git log allows also allows you to restrict the commits shown in any of the ways that git rev-list understands, so if you only wanted to see the changes between v0.0.9 and v0.1.0 you could also do:

git log --oneline --decorate v0.0.9..v0.1.0

Alternative output that might be useful for this purpose is that of git shortlog, which groups and summarizes the contributions of each author. Try, for example:

git shortlog v0.1.0

Answer 2

For creating changelog by tags, i used this script:

#!/bin/bash
# Author:Andrey Nikishaev
echo "CHANGELOG"
echo ----------------------
git tag -l | sort -u -r | while read TAG ; do
    echo
    if [ $NEXT ];then
        echo [$NEXT]
    else
        echo "[Current]"
    fi
    GIT_PAGER=cat git log --no-merges --format=" * %s" $TAG..$NEXT
    NEXT=$TAG
done
FIRST=$(git tag -l | head -1)
echo
echo [$FIRST]
GIT_PAGER=cat git log --no-merges --format=" * %s" $FIRST

Answer 3

An update to the script suggested by Creotiv to get better sorting of the tags

#!/bin/bash
# Author:Andrey Nikishaev, Gunnar Lindholm
echo "CHANGELOG"
echo ----------------------
git for-each-ref --sort='*authordate' --format='%(tag)' refs/tags |tac |grep -v '^$' | while read TAG ; do
     echo
    if [ $NEXT ];then
        echo [$NEXT]
    else
        echo "[Current]"
    fi
    GIT_PAGER=cat git log --no-merges --format=" * %s" $TAG..$NEXT
    NEXT=$TAG
done
FIRST=$(git tag -l | head -1)
echo
echo [$FIRST]
GIT_PAGER=cat git log --no-merges --format=" * %s" $FIRST

Answer 4

There is a very useful gem, the output is written in markdown, add issue support and split commits by tags

https://github.com/kebab-project/katip

Answer 5

Just append tagname to your command and you should be fine :) I like the --graph switch to visualize the branches that led to that tag :)

Answer 6

Just use the tag name as a commit specifier: git log --oneline --decorate v0.1.0

Answer 7

I came up with this modification of the original script. This handles version tags correctly.

#!/bin/bash
# Author:Andrey Nikishaev
echo "CHANGELOG"
echo ----------------------
git tag -l --sort=v:refname | tac | while read TAG ; do
    echo
    if [ $NEXT ];then
        echo [$NEXT]
    else
        echo "[Current]"
    fi
    GIT_PAGER=cat git log --no-merges --format=" * %s" $TAG..$NEXT
    NEXT=$TAG
done
FIRST=$(git tag -l --sort=v:refname | head -1)
echo
echo [$FIRST]
GIT_PAGER=cat git log --no-merges --format=" * %s" $FIRST

Answer 8

You may use Git Changelog Command Line to do this:

npx git-changelog-command-line -std -tr v0.1.0 -tec "
# Changelog

Changelog for {{ownerName}} {{repoName}}.

{{#tags}}
## {{name}}
 {{#issues}}
  {{#hasIssue}}
   {{#hasLink}}
### {{name}} [{{issue}}]({{link}}) {{title}} {{#hasIssueType}} *{{issueType}}* {{/hasIssueType}} {{#hasLabels}} {{#labels}} *{{.}}* {{/labels}} {{/hasLabels}}
   {{/hasLink}}
   {{^hasLink}}
### {{name}} {{issue}} {{title}} {{#hasIssueType}} *{{issueType}}* {{/hasIssueType}} {{#hasLabels}} {{#labels}} *{{.}}* {{/labels}} {{/hasLabels}}
   {{/hasLink}}
  {{/hasIssue}}
  {{^hasIssue}}
### {{name}}
  {{/hasIssue}}

  {{#commits}}
**{{{messageTitle}}}**

{{#messageBodyItems}}
 * {{.}} 
{{/messageBodyItems}}

[{{hash}}](https://github.com/{{ownerName}}/{{repoName}}/commit/{{hash}}) {{authorName}} *{{commitTime}}*

  {{/commits}}

 {{/issues}}
{{/tags}}
"