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 [--[no-]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 If an alias is given, git shows the definition of the alias on
  33 standard output. To get the manual page for the aliased command, use
  34 `git COMMAND --help`.
  35
  36 Note that `git --help ...` is identical to `git help ...` because the
  37 former is internally converted into the latter.
  38
  39 To display the linkgit:git[1] man page, use `git help git`.
  40
  41 This page can be displayed with 'git help help' or `git help --help`
  42
  43 OPTIONS
  44 -------
  45 -a::
  46 --all::
  47         Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This
  48         option overrides any given command or guide name.
  49
  50 --verbose::
  51         When used with `--all` print description for all recognized
  52         commands. This is the default.
  53
  54 -c::
  55 --config::
  56         List all available configuration variables. This is a short
  57         summary of the list in linkgit:git-config[1].
  58
  59 -g::
  60 --guides::
  61         Prints a list of useful guides on the standard output. This
  62         option overrides any given command or guide name.
  63
  64 -i::
  65 --info::
  66         Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The
  67         'info' program will be used for that purpose.
  68
  69 -m::
  70 --man::
  71         Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This
  72         option may be used to override a value set in the
  73         `help.format` configuration variable.
  74 +
  75 By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page,
  76 but the `man.viewer` configuration variable may be used to choose
  77 other display programs (see below).
  78
  79 -w::
  80 --web::
  81         Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML)
  82         format. A web browser will be used for that purpose.
  83 +
  84 The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable
  85 `help.browser`, or `web.browser` if the former is not set. If none of
  86 these config variables is set, the 'git web{litdd}browse' helper script
  87 (called by 'git help') will pick a suitable default. See
  88 linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1] for more information about this.
  89
  90 CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
  91 -----------------------
  92
  93 help.format
  94 ~~~~~~~~~~~
  95
  96 If no command-line option is passed, the `help.format` configuration
  97 variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this
  98 variable; they make 'git help' behave as their corresponding command-
  99 line option:
 100
 101 * "man" corresponds to '-m|--man',
 102 * "info" corresponds to '-i|--info',
 103 * "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'.
 104
 105 help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path
 106 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 107
 108 The `help.browser`, `web.browser` and `browser.<tool>.path` will also
 109 be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command-line
 110 option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS
 111 section above and linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1].
 112
 113 man.viewer
 114 ~~~~~~~~~~
 115
 116 The `man.viewer` configuration variable will be checked if the 'man'
 117 format is chosen. The following values are currently supported:
 118
 119 * "man": use the 'man' program as usual,
 120 * "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs
 121   (this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22),
 122 * "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror
 123   tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below).
 124
 125 Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding
 126 `man.<tool>.cmd` configuration entry (see below).
 127
 128 Multiple values may be given to the `man.viewer` configuration
 129 variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order
 130 listed in the configuration file.
 131
 132 For example, this configuration:
 133
 134 ------------------------------------------------
 135         [man]
 136                 viewer = konqueror
 137                 viewer = woman
 138 ------------------------------------------------
 139
 140 will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if
 141 DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.
 142
 143 If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified
 144 in the `GIT_MAN_VIEWER` environment variable will be tried.  If that
 145 fails too, the 'man' program will be tried anyway.
 146
 147 man.<tool>.path
 148 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 149
 150 You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by
 151 setting the configuration variable `man.<tool>.path`. For example, you
 152 can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting
 153 'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is
 154 available in PATH.
 155
 156 man.<tool>.cmd
 157 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 158
 159 When the man viewer, specified by the `man.viewer` configuration
 160 variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding
 161 `man.<tool>.cmd` configuration variable will be looked up. If this
 162 variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom
 163 command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man
 164 page passed as arguments.
 165
 166 Note about konqueror
 167 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 168
 169 When 'konqueror' is specified in the `man.viewer` configuration
 170 variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an
 171 already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible.
 172
 173 For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is
 174 set to something like `A_PATH_TO/konqueror`. That means we will try to
 175 launch `A_PATH_TO/kfmclient` instead.
 176
 177 If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like
 178 the following:
 179
 180 ------------------------------------------------
 181         [man]
 182                 viewer = konq
 183
 184         [man "konq"]
 185                 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror
 186 ------------------------------------------------
 187
 188 Note about git config --global
 189 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 190
 191 Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set
 192 using the `--global` flag, for example like this:
 193
 194 ------------------------------------------------
 195 $ git config --global help.format web
 196 $ git config --global web.browser firefox
 197 ------------------------------------------------
 198
 199 as they are probably more user specific than repository specific.
 200 See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this.
 201
 202 GIT
 203 ---
 204 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite