How can I print the log for a branch other than the current one?

I'm on a branch with some changes. Changing branch is a pain as some files are locked by processes, so to change branch I'd have to stop all the processes which have locks, then stash the changes before checking out the other branch to see its log.

Is it possible to view the log for a different branch, without having to check it out?

Solution 1:

TL;DR

Use

git log <branch>

where <branch> is the name of the branch of interest.

From the git-log man-page...

A simplified version of the git-log synopsis given in that command's man page is

git log [<revision range>]

Further down, you can find the following passage:

When no <revision range> is specified, it defaults to HEAD (i.e. the whole history leading to the current commit)

In others words, git log is equivalent to git log HEAD. If you're on a branch, called mybranch, say, this command is also equivalent to git log mybranch.

You want to limit the log to commits reachable from another branch, i.e. a branch you're not currently on. The easiest way to do that is to explicitly pass the name of the branch of interest to git log:

git log <branchname>

See the gitrevisions manpage for more details about the many forms that the <revision-range> argument can take.