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Why does HEAD~394 not work if I have 394 unpushed git commits?

I have the following alias:

unpushed== !GIT_CURRENT_BRANCH=$(git name-rev --name-only HEAD) && 
  git log origin/$GIT_CURRENT_BRANCH..$GIT_CURRENT_BRANCH --oneline

when I execute this with |wc -l, it tells me that I have 394 unpushed commits. I use this number to run git diff somecommitid HEAD~394. This fails with the following error:

fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD~394': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.

Strangely, it works right up until the number 358. In another clone, I have 478 commits, and git commands including git show work up until HEAD~411 and then fail. Any clues? I am using git 1.7.5.2 on debian linux.

Solution

  • The best explanation I can think of is that the ~ operator doesn't follow branches. It only includes the first parents. If you want to refer to the last pushed commit, just use origin/$GIT_CURRENT_BRANCH.