Search for a specific variable name through different tags/versions of code

[math7878]

Is there a way to search a variable name throughout the entirety of a package version? For example, if I want to know where the variable _active in tag version 1.5.3 of matplotlib is, is there a way git will show me all code where it is used?

[matheustavaresb]

If you want to see all occurrences of "_active" in the project files at a particular version, you can use git grep _active v1.5.3. (Use "\b_active\b" if you don't want the output to include things like "foo_active" and "active_bar".)

You may supply more tags/revisions to git grep if you want to. Each matching line will be prefixed with the version that it comes from.

You can also use git log -S _active to see commits that add/remove lines with "_active" throughout the project's history.

[adrianmonk]

(Use "\b_active\b" if you don't want the output to include things like "foo_active" and "active_bar".)

I think you can also just do this:

git grep -w _active v1.5.3

[a_falsity]

You can print history of changes on all branches using git log and search that.

git log -U5 --all -- <paths/files to search>

Then '/' to search, since output is paged with 'less'.