Confusing git log behaviour
I was confused by the behaviour of git log when using the before and after options. After some playing I realised that it was because the default git log output shows the author date but the before and after options operate on the commit date.
I can demonstrate the behaviour in an empty repository.
Create a new git repo
$ cd /tmp
$ mkdir testing-git-log
$ cd testing-git-log
$ git init
Create a file and add it to the repo
$ touch file1
$ git add file1
$ git commit -m "Add file1"
Edit the author and commit date of the commit
$ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2015-01-02 09:00" \
git commit --amend \
--date "2015-01-01 09:00" \
--reuse-message HEAD
The --date option sets the author date of the commit.
Setting GIT_COMMITTER_DATE affects the commit date of the commit when it’s amended.
Check that the author and commit date have been set as expected
$ git log --pretty=fuller
Author: Chris Roos <chris@seagul.co.uk>
AuthorDate: Thu Jan 1 09:00:00 2015 +0000
Commit: Chris Roos <chris@seagul.co.uk>
CommitDate: Fri Jan 2 09:00:00 2015 +0000
Add file1
Use git log to show commits on 1st Jan 2015
$ git log --after "2015-01-01 00:00" --before "2015-01-01 23:59:59"
# Nothing shown
Use git log to show commits on 2nd Jan 2015
$ git log --after "2015-01-02 00:00" --before "2015-01-02 23:59:59"
commit 5f2c92e2b44ab697f92cb4336fd66c6206f56be2
Author: Chris Roos <chris@seagul.co.uk>
Date: Thu Jan 1 09:00:00 2015 +0000
Add file1
