The shortest possible output from git log containing author and date

git log --pretty=format:"%h%x09%an%x09%ad%x09%s"

does the job. This outputs:

  fbc3503 mads    Thu Dec 4 07:43:27 2008 +0000   show mobile if phone is null...   
  ec36490 jesper  Wed Nov 26 05:41:37 2008 +0000  Cleanup after [942]: Using timezon
  ae62afd tobias  Tue Nov 25 21:42:55 2008 +0000  Fixed #67 by adding time zone supp
  164be7e mads    Tue Nov 25 19:56:43 2008 +0000  fixed tests, and a 'unending appoi
  93f1526 jesper  Tue Nov 25 09:45:56 2008 +0000  adding time.ZONE.now as time zone 
  2f0f8c1 tobias  Tue Nov 25 03:07:02 2008 +0000  Timezone configured in environment
  a33c1dc jesper  Tue Nov 25 01:26:18 2008 +0000  updated to most recent will_pagina
                                                                              

Inspired by stackoverflow question: "git log output like svn ls -v", I found out that I could add the exact params I needed.

To shorten the date (not showing the time) use --date=short

In case you were curious what the different options were:
%h = abbreviated commit hash
%x09 = tab (character for code 9)
%an = author name
%ad = author date (format respects --date= option)
%s = subject
From kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-log.html (PRETTY FORMATS section) by comment of Vivek.

I use these two .gitconfig settings:

[log]
  date = relative
[format]
  pretty = format:%h %Cblue%ad%Creset %ae %Cgreen%s%Creset

%ad is the author date, which can be overidden by --date or the option specified in the [log] stanza in .gitconfig. I like the relative date because it gives an immediate feeling of when stuff was comitted. Output looks like this:

6c3e1a2 2 hours ago [email protected] lsof is a dependency now.
0754f18 11 hours ago [email protected] Properly unmount, so detaching works.
336a3ac 13 hours ago [email protected] Show ami registration command if auto register fails
be2ad45 17 hours ago [email protected] Fixes #6. Sao Paolo region is included as well.
5aed68e 17 hours ago [email protected] Shorten while loops

This is all of course in color, so it is easy to distinguish the various parts of a log line. Also it is the default when typing git log because of the [format] section.

2014 UPDATE: Since git now supports padding I have a nice amendment to the version above:

pretty = format:%C(yellow)%h %Cblue%>(12)%ad %Cgreen%<(7)%aN%Cred%d %Creset%s

This right aligns the relative dates and left aligns committer names, meaning you get a column-like look that is easy on the eyes.

Screenshot

  

2016 UPDATE: Since GPG commit signing is becoming a thing, I thought I'd update this post with a version that includes signature verification (in the screenshot it's the magenta letter right after the commit). A short explanation of the flag:

%G?: show "G" for a good (valid) signature, "B" for a bad signature, "U" for a good signature with unknown validity and "N" for no signature

Other changes include:

• colors are now removed if the output is to something other than the tty (which is useful for grepping etc.)
• git log -g now contains the reflog selector.
• Save 2 parens on refnames and put them at the end (to preserve column alignment)
• Truncate relative dates if they are too long (e.g. 3 years, 4..)
• Truncate commiter names (might be a little short for some ppl, just change the %<(7,trunc) or check out the git .mailmap feature to shorten commiter names)

Here's the config:

pretty = format:%C(auto,yellow)%h%C(auto,magenta)% G? %C(auto,blue)%>(12,trunc)%ad %C(auto,green)%<(7,trunc)%aN%C(auto,reset)%s%C(auto,red)% gD% D

All in all column alignment is now preserved a lot better at the expense of some (hopefully) useless characters. Feel free to edit if you have any improvements, I'd love to make the message color depend on whether a commit is signed, but it doesn't seem like that is possible atm.

Screenshot