Q:

How can I find the git commit in a repo that is more similar to a specified branch?

I have a branch in a git repo. How can I find the single commit in the repo that most closely matches the branch? Like if I run a diff, between this branch and every other commit in the repo, I want to find the commit that produces the least amount of diff lines.

A:

This was my solution:
#!/bin/sh

start_date="2012-03-01"
end_date="2012-06-01"
needle_ref="aaa"

echo "" > /tmp/script.out;
shas=$(git log --oneline --all --after="$start_date" --until="$end_date" | cut -d' ' -f 1)
for sha in $shas
do
    wc=$(git diff --name-only "$needle_ref" "$sha" | wc -l)
    wc=$(printf %04d $wc);
    echo "$wc $sha" >> /tmp/script.out
done
cat /tmp/script.out | grep -v ^$ | sort | head -1 | cut -d' ' -f 2

