How to read the o/p of the 'git log' command?

Question

I have cloned a Git repository and would like to visualize the different branches and merges. I ran the following command.

git log --graph --full-history --all --color \
        --pretty=format:"%x1b[31m%h%x09%x1b[32m%d%x1b[0m%x20%s"

to get the following output

and this

How do I read this? What is the significance of * / \ and |? Also, is there any way to filter out the only the branching and merging from the git log command by removing the code commits?

Answer 1

Star must show you branch, to which commit belongs (it multibranch tree)

| / \ is just an attempt to draw DAG (see d7382a7 + b5b217d together f.e)

For merge-only commits all is bad, you can try

• --grep=pattern

Limit the commits output to ones with log message that matches the specified pattern (regular expression).

or get full log, log without merges (--no-merges) and subtract somehow 2-nd from first