Get the short Git version hash

Question

Is there a cleaner way to get the short version hash of HEAD from Git?

I want to see the same output as I get from:

 git log -n 1 | head -n 1 | sed -e 's/^commit //' | head -c 8

I originally used the above command to generate a version string, but this is even better:

git describe --tags

It will output strings like 0.1.12 (tagged commit) or 0.1.11-5-g0c85fbc (five commits after the tag).

Since you seem to be good at manipulating data with pipes and whatnot, you should know about [git aliases](https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Aliases). In this case, there is a command for what you want (see answers) but eventually you will find something where there is not, and aliases are great for that. — Tyler, Apr 19 '11 at 04:02
@[MatrixFrog](http://stackoverflow.com/users/65977/matrixfrog) thanks for the tip! I already did have some simple git aliases, but I didn't know just how powerful they can be until now. I especially like the graphviz display. — Attila O., Apr 19 '11 at 19:39
Huh. When I run `git describe --tags` I get the message, _"fatal: No names found, cannot describe anything."_. — Quinn Comendant, Jan 28 '17 at 13:02
@QuinnComendant You probably need to tag something first for `--tags` to work. Try [creating a tag first](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Tagging); e.g. `git tag 1.0.0`. — Attila O., Jun 29 '17 at 08:19
Possible duplicate of [git get short hash from regular hash](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16413373/git-get-short-hash-from-regular-hash) — Cristian Ciupitu, May 09 '18 at 11:43

score 943 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 04 '18 at 03:14

943

Try this:

git rev-parse --short HEAD

The command git rev-parse can do a remarkable number of different things, so you'd need to go through the documentation very carefully to spot that though.

edited Nov 04 '18 at 03:14

cambunctious

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answered Apr 17 '11 at 15:34

Mark Longair

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you can do the reverse and get the long commit hash from the short commit hash by doing the following ```git rev-parse HEAD``` – Andrew Jan 12 '15 at 17:21
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The command also works with long rev IDs that are copy-pasted from the other sources like `git log`, eg `git rev-parse --short 97dd2ae065771908ee9ae0fa08ccdb58b5a6b18f` returns `97dd2ae` – chiborg Jan 15 '16 at 14:55
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It just works with references. You can use HEAD, tag names, branch names or plain hashes. – d12frosted Apr 04 '16 at 16:28
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Warning, this returns a 7 character commit hash (by default) while many places like gitlab use 8 characters! – masterxilo Nov 13 '19 at 19:37
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You can use `git rev-parse --short=8 HEAD` to get the 8 character length that is used by GitLab. You can also set `core.abbrev` to 8 for a specific git repo with a command like `git config core.abbrev 8` [Source](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rev-parse#Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt---shortlength) – n8felton Nov 25 '19 at 13:29
At Ubuntu 20.04 `git rev-parse --short=7 ...` returns 8 charecters for me. even if I put `--short=6` or less - it returns 8!! – Andrey Zentavr Sep 30 '20 at 18:35
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Also important to know is that the number you provide to `--short=n` is just a _minimum_. It may return a longer string in order to guarantee that hash points to a unique commit. From [the docs](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rev-parse#Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt---shortlength): "[it] shortens the object name to a unique prefix with at least `length` characters". – doingweb Feb 10 '22 at 23:57

score 139 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 17 '11 at 15:40

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You can do just about any format you want with --pretty=format:

git log -1 --pretty=format:%h

answered Apr 17 '11 at 15:40

Karl Bielefeldt

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This answer is correct as it allows to get the latest commit short SHA. – FoxyFox Mar 22 '22 at 09:45

score 97 · Answer 3 · answered May 20 '16 at 17:42

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git log -1 --abbrev-commit

will also do it.

git log --abbrev-commit

will list the log entries with abbreviated SHA-1 checksum.

answered May 20 '16 at 17:42

Sanjeev

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The second one is exactly what I was looking for! Very simple to remember and useful in daily life. – iFreilicht Nov 17 '17 at 11:04
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Also works with `git log --pretty=oneline`, which unlike `--oneline`, otherwise prints full size hashes. – sdaau May 16 '20 at 16:54
Awesome! I added the following [alias](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Git-Aliases): `abbrev = log --abbrev-commit` so now I can run `git abbrev` – Michael Hall Aug 07 '20 at 01:11

score 62 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 17 '18 at 18:17

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A simple way to see the Git commit short version and the Git commit message is:

git log --oneline

Note that this is shorthand for

git log --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit

edited Jul 17 '18 at 18:17

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 16 '17 at 17:14

The Gilbert Arenas Dagger

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--oneline is the best option – Juan Ignacio Barisich Jul 23 '19 at 13:57
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@JuanIgnacioBarisich the best option depends on how much information you need to view. In case one needs more information like author or date then git log --abbrev-commit would be a better option. also log --pretty might be a better option to choose which information to log – velocity Feb 13 '20 at 15:05

score 37 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 17 '15 at 05:13

37

A really simple way is to:

git describe --always

answered Feb 17 '15 at 05:13

Steven Shaw

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ha, sweet, that addresses the cases where git describe will fail otherwise (because describe expects a tag somewhere in history) thx – keen May 18 '16 at 23:21
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Not good if you strictly want the short hash - since this can return an annotated tag is there is one. – Zitrax Jun 09 '16 at 12:15
In some cases `git describe --long` could help. From the [docs](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-describe#Documentation/git-describe.txt---long): "Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits and the abbreviated commit name) *even when it matches a tag*." [my emphasis] – djvg Apr 23 '20 at 19:56
Using `--long` is better but sometimes you get a short hash and sometimes 3 items separated by hyphens. These days, I use the accepted answer. Back in the day, I didn't know about annotated tags — perhaps they didn't even exist! – Steven Shaw Apr 23 '20 at 23:21

score 21 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 25 '14 at 09:43

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Branch with short hash and last comment:

git branch -v

  develop      717c2f9 [ahead 42] blabla
* master       2722bbe [ahead 1] bla

edited Jun 25 '14 at 09:43

Attila O.

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answered Jun 25 '14 at 09:42

Fabrice

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This is the way to go! Nothing new to remember! – Robert Moskal Mar 16 '22 at 15:10

score 16 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 17 '18 at 18:18

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I have Git version 2.7.4 with the following settings:

git config --global log.abbrevcommit yes
git config --global core.abbrev 8

Now when I do:

git log --pretty=oneline

I get an abbreviated commit id of eight digits:

ed054a38 add project based .gitignore
30a3fa4c add ez version
0a6e9015 add logic for shifting days
af4ab954 add n days ago
...

edited Jul 17 '18 at 18:18

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 07 '18 at 15:59

Down the Stream

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While this code may answer the question, providing additional context regarding how and why it solves the problem would improve the answer's long-term value. – SherylHohman Mar 07 '18 at 18:07
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Great idea. Appreciated it, Sheryl – Down the Stream Mar 07 '18 at 21:03
This is the best answer so far! Thank you! – Devy Dec 08 '21 at 06:24

velocity · Answer 8 · 2021-11-28T06:21:09.710

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what about this :

git log --pretty="%h %cD %cn %s"

it shows someting like :

674cd0d Wed, 20 Nov 2019 12:15:38 +0000 Bob commit message

see the pretty format documentation

edited Nov 28 '21 at 06:21

answered Feb 13 '20 at 15:12

velocity

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Get the short Git version hash

8 Answers8

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