
How do I find all the modifications of a given string using Git - lukabratos
https://lukabratos.me/2020/04/16/how-do-I-find-all-the-modifications-of-a-given-string-using-git/
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temporallobe
Could you not just use git log and pipe to grep or egrep? Heck, I’ve even
piped git log to a file and then I can use my favorite text editor (VS Code)
and use all kinds of fancy regexes.

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lukabratos
Hey

I'm not sure if you really understand how pickaxe described in the blog post
works. Let me clarify it for you again:

You could use git log: git log will return you git commit title and body.

With the command that I've described in my blog post you can investigate the
whole lifecyle of the changes.

Try doing the same with your technique. I'm curious to see how I can do things
in a better way.

Thanks!

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temporallobe
You’re right, I probably didn’t (and don’t) understand. I thought that the
problem you’re trying to solve is that you wanted to find a particular string
that changed over time (past commits). So let’s say I wanted to look for
isPizzaDelivered; Could I not do a git log |grep “isPizzaDelivered”? to find
all occurrences of that string among all of the previous commits? I read your
blog post thoroughly and maybe I’m just not getting it. Perhaps I need to try
out the commands myself to see what the output would be so I can get a full
picture of what you’re explaining.

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lukabratos
Your approach with git log |grep isPizzaDelivered would work if the string you
wanted to find would be in the commit title or description.

git pickaxe is super handy because it will search for the selected string in
all the commit changes instead.

Give it a go in one of your projects, it's super useful.

I should include some examples in the blog post to convey my message a little
bit clearer.

