The git pickaxe – Find commits that added/removed a specific string

On his blog, Philip Potter described something he calls “the git pickaxe”, a way to finding commits that contained a specific word. It uses git log‘s -S option to search for specific string:

-S<string>

Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the specified string (i.e. addition/deletion) in a file. Intended for the scripter’s use.

It is useful when you’re looking for an exact block of code (like a struct), and want to know the history of that block since it first came into being

Usage:

git log -p -S keyword

To limit searching to only one file, specify the path to it:

git log -p -S keyword /path/to/file.ext

Handy!

The git pickaxe →