title: How to display metadata about single commit in git?
body: <p>I'd like to parse meta information from git repository. I'd like to fetch a single information for a commit, as in</p>
  
  <pre><code>git log --pretty=format:%an HEAD^..HEAD
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Problem is, this is not working for the first commit in repository.</p>
  
  <pre><code>git show --pretty=format:%an HEAD^..HEAD
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>is also close to what I want, except I'm not interested in parsing actual diff.</p>
  
  <p>Any idea how to make git log work for the first commit or how to disable git show from showing commit content?</p>
  
  <p>Or, is there any better way how to retrieve metadata about given commit?</p>