Documentation/git-help.txt

   1 git-help(1)
   2 ===========
   3
   4 NAME
   5 ----
   6 git-help - Display help information about Git
   7
   8 SYNOPSIS
   9 --------
  10 [verse]
  11 'git help' [-a|--all [--verbose]] [-g|--guide]
  12            [-i|--info|-m|--man|-w|--web] [COMMAND|GUIDE]
  13
  14 DESCRIPTION
  15 -----------
  16
  17 With no options and no COMMAND or GUIDE given, the synopsis of the 'git'
  18 command and a list of the most commonly used Git commands are printed
  19 on the standard output.
  20
  21 If the option `--all` or `-a` is given, all available commands are
  22 printed on the standard output.
  23
  24 If the option `--guide` or `-g` is given, a list of the useful
  25 Git guides is also printed on the standard output.
  26
  27 If a command, or a guide, is given, a manual page for that command or
  28 guide is brought up. The 'man' program is used by default for this
  29 purpose, but this can be overridden by other options or configuration
  30 variables.
  31
  32 Note that `git --help ...` is identical to `git help ...` because the
  33 former is internally converted into the latter.
  34
  35 To display the linkgit:git[1] man page, use `git help git`.
  36
  37 This page can be displayed with 'git help help' or `git help --help`
  38
  39 OPTIONS
  40 -------
  41 -a::
  42 --all::
  43         Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This
  44         option overrides any given command or guide name.
  45         When used with `--verbose` print description for all recognized
  46         commands.
  47
  48 -g::
  49 --guides::
  50         Prints a list of useful guides on the standard output. This
  51         option overrides any given command or guide name.
  52
  53 -i::
  54 --info::
  55         Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The
  56         'info' program will be used for that purpose.
  57
  58 -m::
  59 --man::
  60         Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This
  61         option may be used to override a value set in the
  62         `help.format` configuration variable.
  63 +
  64 By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page,
  65 but the `man.viewer` configuration variable may be used to choose
  66 other display programs (see below).
  67
  68 -w::
  69 --web::
  70         Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML)
  71         format. A web browser will be used for that purpose.
  72 +
  73 The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable
  74 `help.browser`, or `web.browser` if the former is not set. If none of
  75 these config variables is set, the 'git web{litdd}browse' helper script
  76 (called by 'git help') will pick a suitable default. See
  77 linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1] for more information about this.
  78
  79 CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
  80 -----------------------
  81
  82 help.format
  83 ~~~~~~~~~~~
  84
  85 If no command-line option is passed, the `help.format` configuration
  86 variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this
  87 variable; they make 'git help' behave as their corresponding command-
  88 line option:
  89
  90 * "man" corresponds to '-m|--man',
  91 * "info" corresponds to '-i|--info',
  92 * "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'.
  93
  94 help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path
  95 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  96
  97 The `help.browser`, `web.browser` and `browser.<tool>.path` will also
  98 be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command-line
  99 option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS
 100 section above and linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1].
 101
 102 man.viewer
 103 ~~~~~~~~~~
 104
 105 The `man.viewer` configuration variable will be checked if the 'man'
 106 format is chosen. The following values are currently supported:
 107
 108 * "man": use the 'man' program as usual,
 109 * "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs
 110 (this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22),
 111 * "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror
 112 tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below).
 113
 114 Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding
 115 `man.<tool>.cmd` configuration entry (see below).
 116
 117 Multiple values may be given to the `man.viewer` configuration
 118 variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order
 119 listed in the configuration file.
 120
 121 For example, this configuration:
 122
 123 ------------------------------------------------
 124         [man]
 125                 viewer = konqueror
 126                 viewer = woman
 127 ------------------------------------------------
 128
 129 will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if
 130 DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.
 131
 132 If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified
 133 in the `GIT_MAN_VIEWER` environment variable will be tried.  If that
 134 fails too, the 'man' program will be tried anyway.
 135
 136 man.<tool>.path
 137 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 138
 139 You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by
 140 setting the configuration variable `man.<tool>.path`. For example, you
 141 can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting
 142 'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is
 143 available in PATH.
 144
 145 man.<tool>.cmd
 146 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 147
 148 When the man viewer, specified by the `man.viewer` configuration
 149 variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding
 150 `man.<tool>.cmd` configuration variable will be looked up. If this
 151 variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom
 152 command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man
 153 page passed as arguments.
 154
 155 Note about konqueror
 156 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 157
 158 When 'konqueror' is specified in the `man.viewer` configuration
 159 variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an
 160 already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible.
 161
 162 For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is
 163 set to something like 'A_PATH_TO/konqueror'. That means we will try to
 164 launch 'A_PATH_TO/kfmclient' instead.
 165
 166 If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like
 167 the following:
 168
 169 ------------------------------------------------
 170         [man]
 171                 viewer = konq
 172
 173         [man "konq"]
 174                 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror
 175 ------------------------------------------------
 176
 177 Note about git config --global
 178 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 179
 180 Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set
 181 using the `--global` flag, for example like this:
 182
 183 ------------------------------------------------
 184 $ git config --global help.format web
 185 $ git config --global web.browser firefox
 186 ------------------------------------------------
 187
 188 as they are probably more user specific than repository specific.
 189 See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this.
 190
 191 GIT
 192 ---
 193 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite