Junio, I appreciate your help. Okay, That all makes sense. I would note that something like: git shortlog -s "$FILENAME: | cut -f 1 | paste -sd+ - | bc seems like it run much faster then: git log --oneline "$FILENAME" | wc -l Which was why I was looking at shortlog. I was using it to sort files by commit count when provided a list of files, which git rev-list doesn't really work for. Anyway I can try and put it in log proper, if you think that's the best place. Thank you, Lawrence Siebert -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html