> None of these are the most efficient way to do this (you can use git show and git log -S or maybe git grep to accomplish something similar), but personally I always forget the syntax and navigating a filesystem feels easier to me.
i feel like some of the old-school commands will benefit from long args, e.g., '--search'. at the time of writing, the current `git log` documentation[1]'s `-S' has _one_ instance of the word 'search'.
(un)related to the article, author went on to contribute documentation updates to git, which were much needed [2]
[1]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-log#Documentation/git-log.txt--... [2]: https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/01/08/a-data-model-for-git/
What, you didn't know to search for pickaxe!? :-)
Meanwhile, --grep searches the log message. Yeah, the git CLI is an ergonomic nightmare and I've been using it since the very beginning.
FWIW, I can't think of a single time I've wanted to use -S instead of -G.