How to get parent of specific commit in Git?

Question

I have commit number. I would like to get previous commit number(parent). I need commits from current branch.

Answer 1

For the full details: git log 4c7036e807fa18a3e21a5182983c7c0f05c5936e^ -1

For just the hash: git log 4c7036e807fa18a3e21a5182983c7c0f05c5936e^ -1 --pretty=%H

Answer 2

To get Parent Commit

git cat-file -p commit_id

tree tree_id
parent parent_commit_id
[parent other_parent_commit_id] # present only in case of merge commits
author xxx <xxx@email.com> 1513768542 +0530
committer xxx <xxx@email.com> 1513768542 +0530 

Answer 3

git log --pretty=%P -n 1 "$commit_from"

Answer 4

If trying to get all parents and using revision parameter syntax, you may try using log subcommand with --no-walk option.

An example, if we have the following:

$ git --oneline --graph
*   A
|\
| * B
| * C
| * D
* |   E

In this example, I'll use ^@ to get all parents and the --no-walk option to show only the parents and not their ancestors.

$ git log --no-walk A^@
commit B
    ........

commit E
    ........

Check out git rev-parse for more detail about revision parameter.

Answer 5

If you only want the ids of the parents of an input commit with id <SHA> then run this command:

git cat-file -p <SHA> | awk 'NR > 1 {if(/^parent/){print $2; next}{exit}}'

This will work for normal and shallow clones.

Answer 6

To get the parent, just add a ^ after the commit SHA of the commit you want to see.

To see a commit: git show <SHA> Example: git show bb05425c504575145d005c0a887e0a80b885ced0

To see the parent: git show <SHA>^
Example: git show bb05425c504575145d005c0a887e0a80b885ced0^