Convert Git logs to JSON. The first script (git-log2json.sh) is all you need, the other two files contain only optional bonus features 😀THIS GIST NOW HAS A FULL GIT REPO: https://github.com/context-driven-testing-toolkit/git-log2json

git-log2json.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Use this one-liner to produce a JSON literal from the Git log:

git log \
    --pretty=format:'{%n  "commit": "%H",%n  "author": "%aN <%aE>",%n  "date": "%ad",%n  "message": "%f"%n},' \
    $@ | \
    perl -pe 'BEGIN{print "["}; END{print "]\n"}' | \
    perl -pe 's/},]/}]/'

git-stat2json.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# OPTIONAL: use this stand-alone shell script to produce a JSON object
# with information similar to git --stat.
#
# You can then easily cross-reference or merge this with the JSON git
# log, since both are keyed on the commit hash, which is unique.

git log \
    --numstat \
    --format='%H' \
    $@ | \
    perl -lawne '
        if (defined $F[1]) {
            print qq#{"insertions": "$F[0]", "deletions": "$F[1]", "path": "$F[2]"},#
        } elsif (defined $F[0]) {
            print qq#],\n"$F[0]": [#
        };
        END{print qq#],#}' | \
    tail -n +2 | \
    perl -wpe 'BEGIN{print "{"}; END{print "}"}' | \
    tr '\n' ' ' | \
    perl -wpe 's#(]|}),\s*(]|})#$1$2#g' | \
    perl -wpe 's#,\s*?}$#}#'

merge.js

/*
 * OPTIONAL: use this Node.js expression to merge the data structures
 * created by the two shell scripts above
 */

var gitLog, lstat;

gitLog = require('git-log.json');
lstat = require('git-stat.json');

gitLog.map(function(o){
    o.paths = lstat[o.commit];
});

merge.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# OPTIONAL: Use jq to merge the two JSON files.

jq --slurp '.[1] as $logstat | .[0] | map(.paths = $logstat[.commit])' git-log.json git-stat.json

Show more fields in the git log

git log
--pretty=format:'{%n "commit-hash": "%H",%n "abbreviated-commit-hash": "%h",%n "author-name": "%an",%n "author-email": "%aE",%n "author-date": "%aD",%n "subject": "%s",%n "sanitized-subject-line": "%f",%n "body": "%b",%n "raw-body": "%B",%n "commit-notes": "%N"%n},'
$@ |
perl -pe 'BEGIN{print "["}; END{print "]\n"}' |
perl -pe 's/},]/}]/' >> log-json.txt
Example result

{
"commit-hash": "4f7abc00b5690c0b358f365ad5612cda6fbf96e7",
"abbreviated-commit-hash": "4f7abc0",
"author-name": "abcde",
"author-email": "abcde@0ec998aa-f9da-4275-8eea-c4a1938c285e",
"author-date": "Thu, 24 Nov 2016 08:44:24 +0000",
"subject": "Unblocking Check-ins via TeamCity caused by fix for ABC",
"sanitized-subject-line": "Unblocking-Check-ins-via-TeamCity-caused-by-fix-for-ABC",
"body": "Reverting changes of ABC",
"raw-body": "Unblocking Check-ins via TeamCity caused by fix for ABC
Reverting changes of DEF
",
"commit-notes": ""
},

How would I show the files in this as well?

I achieved a good level of double quotes escaping by doing the following

git --no-pager log     --pretty=format:'{%n  111555commit666222: 111555%H666222,%n  111555author666222: 111555%an <%ae>666222,%n  111555date666222: 111555%ad666222,%n  111555message666222: 111555%s %n %b666222},'     $@ | sed 's/"/\\"/g' |  sed 's/111555/"/g' | sed 's/666222/"/g' | perl -pe 'BEGIN{print "["}; END{print "]\n"}' | perl -pe 's/},]/}]/' 

It's not super pretty but it escaped the double quotes in the commit messages.

I'm not sure why different special character sequences are used for "opening double quote" and "closing double quote". I don't think that provides any benefit. Just use 111555 (or whatever) for both.

(I know the original post I'm commenting on is very old, but it and my comment on it are both still relevant today.)

You can use jq itself to escape everything:

while IFS=$'\t' read -d '' -r -u 3 commit_hash author_date subject body; do
    jq --null-input \
        --arg commit_hash "$commit_hash" \
        --arg author_date "$author_date" \
        --arg subject "$subject" \
        --arg body "$body" \
        '{
            "commit_hash":(if $commit_hash == "" then null else $commit_hash end),
            "author_date":(if $author_date == "" then null else $author_date end),
            "subject":(if $subject == "" then null else $subject end),
            "body":(if $body == "" then null else $body end),
        }'
done 3< <(git log --expand-tabs --pretty='tformat:%H%x09%aI%x09%s%x09%b' -z)

It's a bit clunky, but should handle any weird formatting. Basically, format the log using NUL-terminated lines with tab column separators, then pass that into jq for escaping, treating all empty strings as null.

Doing it solely on jq (not in shell) is shown on this blog: https://til.simonwillison.net/jq/git-log-json

git log --pretty=format:'%H%x00%an <%ae>%x00%ad%x00%s%x00' | \
  jq -R -s '[split("\n")[:-1] | map(split("\u0000")) | .[] | {
    "commit": .[0],
    "author": .[1],
    "date": .[2],
    "message": .[3]
  }]'