How do I get the Git commit count?

I'd like to get the number of commits of my Git repository, a bit like SVN revision numbers.

The goal is to use it as a unique, incrementing build number.

I currently do like that, on Unix/Cygwin/msysGit:

git log --pretty=format:'' | wc -l

But I feel it's a bit of a hack.

Is there a better way to do that? It would be cool if I actually didn't need wc or even Git, so it could work on a bare Windows. Just read a file or a directory structure...

Solution 1:

To get a commit count for a revision (HEAD, master, a commit hash):

git rev-list --count <revision>

To get the commit count across all branches:

git rev-list --all --count

I recommend against using this for build identifier, but if you must, it's probably best to use the count for the branch you're building against. That way the same revision will always have the same number. If you use the count for all branches, activity on other branches could change the number.

Solution 2:

git shortlog is one way.

Solution 3:

This command returns count of commits grouped by committers:

git shortlog -s

Output:

14 John lennon
9  Janis Joplin

You may want to know that the -s argument is the contraction form of --summary.

Solution 4:

git rev-list HEAD --count

git rev-list

git rev-list <commit> : List commits that are reachable by following the parent links from the given commit (in this case, HEAD).

--count : Print a number stating how many commits would have been listed, and suppress all other output.

Solution 5:

If you’re looking for a unique and still quite readable identifier for commits, git describe might be just the thing for you.