如何在git分支上获取最新的结帐提交？

Question

I am looking to make a software update using git. It means that the client has a local clone of the remote git repository and from a swing interface it will see the children commits of his current commit , meaning all commits newer than his current commit.

Then the client will check the desired commit from the list of the newer commits and make an update to that commit.

In order to execute git commands, I create few methods using ProcessBuilder.

To test the behavior I have 2 local repositories, and one remote repository. 1. in localRepo1 I clone the remoteRepo, then I write a text into a newFile and I commit it, then push it. 2 in localRepo2 I clone the remoteRepo: it is now a full copy of the remote repo, so it have the newFile also. 3 from the localRepo1 I am writing a newFile2 containing another text and push it to the remote repository. 4 from the localRepo2 I want to see the difference that I only have a commit, not 2. I mean, in localRepo2 I only have the newFile, not the files newFile and newFile2.

I am testing with 2 terminals: int the first I am in the directory localRepo1, and the second terminal is in the directory localRepo2.

executing

git rev-list --all --date-order 

in each local repos, then I can clearly see the differences:

localRepo1:

82d8715010cab1a6649ebecb6adeff9c3c88d85f
a2ad1c5ab691fc63a283d7dde85014606ed85f62
c8757e4f8ff318260577e479e3c9146f79aebacf

localRepo2:

a2ad1c5ab691fc63a283d7dde85014606ed85f62
c8757e4f8ff318260577e479e3c9146f79aebacf

I am looking for a command to see that missing commit:

82d8715010cab1a6649ebecb6adeff9c3c88d85f

This missing commit is the one that the client will see into a swing component (comboBox for example - there can be more missing commits) and can check to update to.

How can I see these differences?

Answer 1

I found a satisfying solution:

git fetch origin

then

git whatchanged ..origin/<branchName>

exp:

git whatchanged ..origin/maste

Answer 2

I can think of two ways.

What I would recommend is, don't push. Instead have your client software fetch. Then the client's local branch remains correctly on the commit they're using, and the fetch gets them a remote branch ref reflecting the latest available commit.

git rev-list --reverse origin/master..master

will show the available commits to which an update is possible, and once one is chosen the client software can (fast-forward) merge the chosen commit into the local branch.

( rev-list instead of log because the former is better for scripted parsing)

The only down side is that you need to define when the client software will check for updates. If that's not possible... well, I don't believe it. But if you refuse to solve it that way:

Maintain two branches. The one you push to, and the one the client is actually on. Start the two on the same commit, and only update the client branch by (fast-forward) merging from the push branch.