Using GitHub's API to get lines of code added/deleted per commit (on a branch)? - github

Question

The following gets a raw list of commits for a project's master branch:
https://api.github.com/repos/<organization_name>/<repo_name/commits?page=0&per_page=30
Question 1: How can one get a similar list but for a specific <branchname>?
Question 2: The list of commits above doesn't include any data about the lines of code added/deleted per commit (i.e., a very rough productivity metric). Is there a way to get this data in the query?

Answer 1

You can fetch the specific branch with sha={branchname} param in the /commits params;
sha string SHA or branch to start listing commits from. Default: the repository’s default branch (usually master).
https://api.github.com/repos/<org_name>/<repo_name>/commits?sha=<branchName>&page=0&per_page=30
To get per-file specific changes for each commit, you'd need to check url variable for each commit entity in the response of above URL. From that new endpoint call, you will get a more detailed information of that single commit. files variable in there will contain the changes contained in that commit. Both added & removed codes per file.
An example with my repo;
https://api.github.com/repos/buraequete/orikautomation/commits?sha=master&page=0&per_page=30
If we get the first commits url;
https://api.github.com/repos/buraequete/orikautomation/commits/89792e6256dfccc5e9151d81bf04145ba02fef8f
Which contains the changes you want in files variable as a list.
"files": [
{
"sha": "8aaaa7de53bed57fc2865d2fd84897211c3e70b6",
"filename": "lombok.config",
"status": "added",
"additions": 1,
"deletions": 0,
"changes": 1,
"blob_url": "https://github.com/buraequete/orikautomation/blob/89792e6256dfccc5e9151d81bf04145ba02fef8f/lombok.config",
"raw_url": "https://github.com/buraequete/orikautomation/raw/89792e6256dfccc5e9151d81bf04145ba02fef8f/lombok.config",
"contents_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/buraequete/orikautomation/contents/lombok.config?ref=89792e6256dfccc5e9151d81bf04145ba02fef8f",
"patch": "## -0,0 +1 ##\n+lombok.accessors.chain = true"
},
...
]
Sorry but I don't think there is a way to get those per file changes in the original /commits endpoint call, you have to do multiple calls...