Checking Status and History

As you work, you’ll often need to know: what has changed? Which files are staged? What commits have I made? Git provides two essential commands for this: git status and git log.

git status – The Current State

git status shows you exactly what’s going on in your repository. It tells you:

Which branch you are on
Which files are staged (changes to be committed)
Which files are modified but not yet staged
Which files are untracked

Try modifying hello.txt and then run git status again:

echo "New line" >> hello.txt
git status

You’ll see Changes not staged for commit: modified: hello.txt.

Short Status

For a compact view, use:

git status -s

It shows symbols like M (modified), A (added), ?? (untracked).

git log – The History

git log displays the commit history in reverse chronological order. Each entry shows:

Commit hash (a unique ID)
Author and email
Date
Commit message

Try it:

git log

Making git log More Useful

You can customize the output:

git log --oneline – shows each commit on one line (hash + message).
git log --graph --oneline --decorate – shows a graphical representation of branches.
git log -p – shows the actual changes (diff) for each commit.
git log --author="Name" – filters commits by author.

Example Workflow with Status and Log

Let’s stage and commit the change we made, then see the updated log:

git add hello.txt
git commit -m "Add a second line"
git log --oneline

You’ll now see two commits.

Two Minute Drill

git status shows the current state: staged, unstaged, untracked files.
git status -s gives a compact view.
git log displays commit history.
Use git log --oneline for a quick overview.
Add --graph to visualize branches.

Need more clarification?

Drop us an email at career@quipoinfotech.com

Welcome to Quipoin

Quipoin Menu

Checking Status and History

Need more clarification?