Showing branch hierarchy at the command line?

Question

I\'m curious if there is a way to show branch hierarchy on the command line? For instance if I use git branch, instead of seeing output like this:

*         


        

Answer 1

That's not how branches work from git's point of view. If I make some commits to branch a, create branch b from it, work there, and then do other work back on a:

A -- B -- D <-- a
       \
        \
          C <-- b

That's indistinguishable if you did it the other way around:

A -- B -- C <-- b
       \
        \
          D <-- a

The only way I can think of to find out from which branch certain branch originated is the reflog, but that's unreliable (entries older than 90 days are usually deleted).