git show

Learn to view a commit's content with git show.

Inspect commits with git show

The git show command gives detailed information about a specific commit. It prints the commit message, author, date, and the diff of changes introduced by that commit. If you don't supply a parameter, it displays the latest commit (HEAD) by default.

git show
git show a1b2c3d

This command is used to understand exactly which lines were added or removed in the past.

git show options

By adding the -s flag to git show, you can hide the patch diff and view only the commit summary. If you want to list only the changed files, use the --name-only option. You can also directly view the content of a file at a specific commit.

git show -s HEAD
git show --name-only HEAD
git show HEAD:notlar.txt

This allows you to inspect the exact state of a file at that commit without touching your working directory.

Exercise Read a file as of a commit

Use git show to print the content of the notlar.txt file directly from the HEAD commit.

Show example solution

git init -q
git config user.name "Ahmet"
git config user.email "ahmet@example.com"
echo "CodeBlanks Git Dersleri" > notlar.txt
git add notlar.txt
git commit -qm "Notlar dosyasi eklendi"

git show HEAD:notlar.txt

Test yourself

What does the git show command display when run without any parameters?
- The contents of the very first commit in the repository
- The details and diff of the HEAD commit
- A one-line list of all commits in the repository
- Only the file diffs that are not yet staged
Show answer

The details and diff of the HEAD commit — git show defaults to presenting the information and diff output of the latest commit pointed to by HEAD.
Hide commit patch
```
git show ____ HEAD
```
Show answer
```
git show -s HEAD
```
git show commands

git show

Latest commit detail and diff
git show <hash>

Content of specified commit
git show -s

Commit info without diff
git show --name-only

Only changed file names

Next lesson: File history

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