Git: Reference A Commit Via Commit Message Pattern Matching

Generally when referencing a commit, you’ll use the SHA or a portion of the SHA. For example with git-show:

$ git show cd6a63d014
...

There are many ways to reference commits though. One way is via regex pattern matching on the commit message. For instance, if you recently had a commit with a typo and you had included typo in the commit message, then you could reference that commit like so:

$ git show :/typo
Author: Josh Branchaud
Date: Mon Dec 21 15:50:20 2015 -0600

Fix a typo in the documentation
...

By using :/ followed by some text, git will attempt to find the most recent commit whose commit message matches the text. As I alluded to, regex can be used in the text.

See $ man gitrevisions for more details and other ways to reference commits.

Via jbranchaud/til.