Gerrit Code Review - Searching Changes

Default Searches

Most basic searches can be viewed by clicking on a link along the top menu bar. The link will prefill the search box with a common search query, execute it, and present the results. If exactly one change matches the search, the change will be presented instead of a list.

Description	Default Query
All > Open	status:open (or is:open)
All > Merged	status:merged
All > Abandoned	status:abandoned
My > Dafts	has:draft
My > Watched Changes	status:open is:watched
My > Starred Changes	is:starred
Open changes in Foo	status:open project:Foo

Basic Change Search

Similar to many popular search engines on the web, just enter some text and let Gerrit figure out the meaning:

Description	Examples
Legacy numerical id	15183
Full or abbreviated Change-Id	Ic0ff33
Full or abbreviated commit SHA-1	d81b32ef
Email address	user@example.com
Approval requirement	CodeReview>=+2, Verified=1

Search Operators

Operators act as restrictions on the search. As more operators are added to the same query string, they further restrict the returned results. Search can also be performed by typing only a text with no operator. It will try to match a project name by substring.

E.g. Searching for just "gerrit is:starred" will try to match a project name by "gerrit" as substring.

age:'AGE'

Amount of time that has expired since the change was last updated with a review comment or new patch set. The age must be specified to include a unit suffix, for example age:2d:

s, sec, second, seconds
m, min, minute, minutes
h, hr, hour, hours
d, day, days
w, week, weeks (1 week is treated as 7 days)
mon, month, months (1 month is treated as 30 days)
y, year, years (1 year is treated as 365 days)

change:'ID'

Either a legacy numerical ID such as 15183, or a newer style Change-Id that was scraped out of the commit message.

owner:'USER'

Changes originally submitted by USER.

ownerin:'GROUP'

Changes originally submitted by a user in GROUP.

reviewer:'USER'

Changes that have been, or need to be, reviewed by USER.

reviewerin:'GROUP'

Changes that have been, or need to be, reviewed by a user in GROUP.

commit:'SHA1'

Changes where SHA1 is one of the patch sets of the change.

project:'PROJECT'

Changes occuring in PROJECT. If PROJECT starts with ^ it matches project names by regular expression. The dk.brics.automaton library is used for evaluation of such patterns.

branch:'BRANCH'

Changes for BRANCH. The branch name is the short name shown in the web interface, without the traditional refs/heads/ prefix. This operator is a shorthand for refs:. Searching for branch:master really means ref:refs/heads/master, and searching for branch:refs/heads/master is the same as searching for ref:refs/heads/refs/heads/master.

If BRANCH starts with ^ it matches branch names by regular expression patterns. The dk.brics.automaton library is used for evaluation of such patterns.

topic:'TOPIC'

Changes whose designated topic at upload was TOPIC. This is often combined with branch: and project: operators to select all related changes in a series.

If TOPIC starts with ^ it matches topic names by regular expression patterns. The dk.brics.automaton library is used for evaluation of such patterns.

ref:'REF'

Changes where the destination branch is exactly the given REF name. Since REF is absolute from the top of the repository it must start with refs/.

If REF starts with ^ it matches reference names by regular expression patterns. The dk.brics.automaton library is used for evaluation of such patterns.

tr:'ID', bug:'ID'

Search for changes whose commit message contains ID and matched one or more of the trackingid sections in the server’s configuration file. This is typically used to search for changes that fix a bug or defect by the issue tracking system’s issue identifier.

label:'VALUE'

Matches changes where the approval score VALUE has been set during a review. See labels below for more detail on the format of the argument.

message:'MESSAGE'

Changes that matches MESSAGE arbitrary string in body commit messages.

file:^REGEX

Matches any change where REGEX matches a file that was affected by the change. The regular expression pattern must start with ^. For example, to match all XML files use file:^.*\.xml$. The dk.brics.automaton library is used for the evaluation of such patterns.

The ^ required at the beginning of the regular expression not only denotes a regular expression, but it also has the usual meaning of anchoring the match to the start of the string. To match all Java files, use file:^.*\.java.

The entire regular expression pattern, including the \^ character, should be double quoted when using more complex construction (like ones using a bracket expression). For example, to match all XML files named like name1.xml, name2.xml, and name3.xml use \file:"\^name[1-3].xml".

Currently this operator is only available on a watched project and may not be used in the search bar.

has:draft

True if there is a draft comment saved by the current user.

has:star

Same as is:starred, true if the change has been starred by the current user.

is:starred

Same as has:star, true if the change has been starred by the current user.

is:watched

True if this change matches one of the current user’s watch filters, and thus is likely to notify the user when it updates.

is:reviewed

True if there is at least one non-zero score on the change, in any approval category, by any user.

is:open

True if the change is other open or submitted, merge pending.

is:closed

True if the change is either merged or abandoned.

is:submitted, is:merged, is:abandoned

Same as status:'STATE'.

status:open

True if the change state is other review in progress or submitted, merge pending.

status:reviewed

Same as is:reviewed, matches if there is at least one non-zero score on the change, in any approval category, by any user.

status:submitted

Change has been submitted, but is waiting for a dependency.

status:closed

True if the change is either merged or abandoned.

status:merged

Change has been merged into the branch.

status:abandoned

Change has been abandoned by the change owner, or administrator.

Boolean Operators

Unless otherwise specified, operators are joined using the AND boolean operator, thereby restricting the search results.

Parentheses can be used to force a particular precendence on complex operator expressions, otherwise OR has higher precendence than AND.

Negation

Any operator can be negated by prefixing it with -, for example -is:starred is the exact opposite of is:starred and will therefore return changes that are not starred by the current user.

The operator NOT (in all caps) is a synonym.

AND

The boolean operator AND (in all caps) can be used to join two other operators together. This results in a restriction of the results, returning only changes that match both operators.

OR

The boolean operator OR (in all caps) can be used to find changes that match either operator. This increases the nubmer of results that are returned, as more changes are considered.

Labels

Label operators can be used to match approval score given during a code review. The specific set of supported labels depends on the server configuration, however CodeReview and Verified are the default labels provided out of the box.

A label name is any of the following:

The category name. If the category name contains spaces, it must be wrapped in double quotes. Example: label:"Code Review".
The name, without spaces. This avoids needing to use double quotes for the common category Code Review. Example: label:CodeReview.
The internal short name. Example: label:CRVW, or label:VRIF.
The one or two character abbreviation shown in the column header of change list pages. Example: label:R or label:V.

A label name must be followed by a score, or an operator and a score. The easiest way to explain these are by example.

label:CodeReview=2
label:CodeReview=+2
label:CodeReview+2: Matches changes where there is at least one +2 score for Code Review. The \+ prefix is optional for positive score values. If the + is used, the = operator is optional.
label:CodeReview=-2
label:CodeReview-2: Matches changes where there is at least one -2 score for Code Review. Because the negative sign is required, the = operator is optional.
label:CodeReview=1: Matches changes where there is at least one +1 score for Code Review. Scores of +2 are not matched, even though they are higher.
label:CodeReview>=1: Matches changes with either a +1, +2, or any higher score.
label:CodeReview<=-1: Matches changes with either a -1, -2, or any lower score.
is:open CodeReview+2 Verified+1 -Verified-1 -CodeReview-2: Matches changes that are ready to be submitted.
is:open (Verified-1 OR CodeReview-2): Changes that are blocked from submission due to a blocking score.

Magical Operators

Most of these operators exist to support features of Gerrit Code Review, and are not meant to be accessed by the average end-user. However, they are recognized by the query parser, and may prove useful in limited contexts to administrators or power-users.

visibleto:'USER-or-GROUP': Matches changes that are visible to USER or to anyone who is a member of GROUP. Here group names may be specified as either an internal group name, or if LDAP is being used, an external LDAP group name. The value may be wrapped in double quotes to include spaces or other special characters. For example, to match an LDAP group: visibleto:"CN=Developers, DC=example, DC=com".

This operator may be useful to test access control rules, however a change can only be matched if both the current user and the supplied user or group can see it. This is due to the implicit is:visible clause that is always added by the server.
is:visible: Magical internal flag to prove the current user has access to read the change. This flag is always added to any query.
starredby:'USER': Matches changes that have been starred by USER.
watchedby:'USER': Matches changes that USER has configured watch filters for.
draftby:'USER': Matches changes that USER has left unpublished drafts on. Since the drafts are unpublished, it is not possible to see the draft text, or even how many drafts there are.
limit:'CNT': Limit the returned results to no more than CNT records. This is automatically set to the page size configured in the current user’s preferences. Including it in a web query may lead to unpredictable results with regards to pagination.
resume_sortkey:'KEY': Positions the low level scan routine to start from KEY and continue through changes from this point. This is most often used for paginating result sets. Including this in a web query may lead to unpredictable results.
sortkey_after:'KEY', sortkey_before:'KEY': Restart the low level scan routine from KEY. This is automatically set by the pagination system as the user navigates through results of a query. Including either value in a web query may lead to unpredictable results.

Part of Gerrit Code Review