Ask HN: Is there something like “today X years ago” but for Git?

Tomte · on Aug 20, 2022

Are you looking for git checkout 'main@{1 year ago}'

See also https://git-scm.com/docs/git-rev-parse, that works with all kinds of git subcommands.

BTW, git doesn't track every change, only when you add the change.

brasic · on Aug 21, 2022

A fun thing is that the full gitrevisions syntax used by `rev-parse` is supported many places on GitHub where you would normally put an object id or ref name.

For example, https://github.com/git/git/tree/master@{5.years.ago}

Note that this uses the reflog which means that it won’t work in some situations (branch renames, entries rolled off the end of the log, etc)

shoo · on Aug 20, 2022

For a single file you can use `git log` to show you all patches that changed the file, going back in history forever:

  git log --follow --patch -- some/file

It composes with Tomte's @{1 year ago} tip if you want to start reading at a particular point in time:

  git log --follow --patch 'main@{1 year ago}' -- some/file

ref: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-log

beverett · on Aug 20, 2022

There is https://retrogit.com/ that sends you emails on what happened in repositories on this day, similar to memories.