data structures - DAG vs. tree using Git?

Question

I've often read that Git uses the directed acyclic graph (DAG) data structure, with each commit as a node, and things like branches and tags as pointers to nodes.

But when I try to visualize my commit history using tools like gitk, it looks more like a tree than a graph since every parent-child relationship is directed one way.

So, what's the difference between a DAG and a tree, specifically with regards to Git?

Answer 1

But when I try to visualize my commit history using tools like gitk, it looks more like a tree than a graph since every parent-child relationship is directed one way.

A DAG, like a tree, can be laid out such that all parent-child relationships are one-way. The difference between them is that nodes in a DAG can have multiple parents. The most common case of this in Git is when you do a merge. A merge commit will have all of the commits that were merged as parents. A tree doesn't allow nodes to have multiple parents.

(Image source)

Notice how the merge commit C6 has two parents, C4 and C5.