View Current Commit Message during Git Rebase Conflict

When I do a git rebase and I get a conflict, I can use git log (or my preferred improved git log) which shows me all the commits thus far. However, I often get confused about what the current commit is that caused the conflict.

It would be super helpful if I could see the commit message of the current (incomplete) commit.

Update If you are running Git 2.17 or newer, it turns out you can view the current commit in the ongoing rebase with

git rebase --show-current-patch

If you are running an older version of Git you can use this

git show $(more $(git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD))

How the Older Version Works

The remainder of this article explores how the pre-Git 2.17 command from above works.

Manually

When a rebase is occurring, in the Git directory (i.e. .git/) a file is created called REBASE_HEAD, which contains a single line of text which is the SHA of the current (incomplete) commit.

We could open .git/REBASE_HEAD, make note of the SHA (e.g. abc123abc123abc123), and then view that commit with

git show abc123abc123abc123

Automated

The manual process to view this information is a lot of work, which is why I prefer the one line automated method.

git show $(more $(git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD))

To understand this we’re going to start with the inner most section and work our way out.

git rev-parse –git-path

git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD

git rev-parse –git-path returns the path to the given Git file relative to our current directory.

From the root of our project

git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD
.git/REBASE_HEAD

from a subdirectory in our project

git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD
../.git/REBASE_HEAD

Bash Command Substitution

Command substitution lets us take the output of a command and use it as part of another command.

If we are in the root of our git project

more $(git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD)

is the same as

more .git/REBASE_HEAD

both output the SHA of the current (incomplete) commit in the rebase.

more $(git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD)
abc123abc123abc123

Git Show

We want to view the commit (e.g. abc123abc123abc123)

git show abc123abc123abc123

We can do this by adding another level of command substitution, since

more $(git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD)

gives us abc123abc123abc123

we get

git show $(more $(git rev-parse --git-path REBASE_HEAD))

Photo Credit

George Hodan

Sal Ferrarello (@salcode)

Sal is a PHP developer with a focus on the WordPress platform. He is a conference speaker with a background including Piano Player, Radio DJ, Magician/Juggler, Beach Photographer, and High School Math Teacher. Sal can be found professionally at WebDevStudios, where he works as a senior backend engineer.