Setup and Config
Getting and Creating Projects
Basic Snapshotting
Branching and Merging
Sharing and Updating Projects
Inspection and Comparison
Patching
Debugging
External Systems
Server Admin
Guides
- gitattributes
- Command-line interface conventions
- Everyday Git
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Glossary
- Hooks
- gitignore
- gitmodules
- Revisions
- Submodules
- Tutorial
- Workflows
- All guides...
Administration
Plumbing Commands
- 2.43.1 → 2.46.0 no changes
-
2.43.0
11/20/23
- 2.38.1 → 2.42.3 no changes
-
2.38.0
10/02/22
- 2.36.1 → 2.37.7 no changes
-
2.36.0
04/18/22
- 2.35.1 → 2.35.8 no changes
-
2.35.0
01/24/22
- 2.34.1 → 2.34.8 no changes
-
2.34.0
11/15/21
SYNOPSIS
git help [-a|--all] [--[no-]verbose] [--[no-]external-commands] [--[no-]aliases] git help [[-i|--info] [-m|--man] [-w|--web]] [<command>|<doc>] git help [-g|--guides] git help [-c|--config] git help [--user-interfaces] git help [--developer-interfaces]
DESCRIPTION
With no options and no <command> or <doc> given, the synopsis of the git command and a list of the most commonly used Git commands are printed on the standard output.
If the option --all
or -a
is given, all available commands are
printed on the standard output.
If the option --guides
or -g
is given, a list of the
Git concept guides is also printed on the standard output.
If a command or other documentation is given, the relevant manual page will be brought up. The man program is used by default for this purpose, but this can be overridden by other options or configuration variables.
If an alias is given, git shows the definition of the alias on
standard output. To get the manual page for the aliased command, use
git <command> --help
.
Note that git --help ...
is identical to git help ...
because the
former is internally converted into the latter.
To display the git[1] man page, use git help git
.
This page can be displayed with git help help or git help --help
.
OPTIONS
- -a
- --all
-
Print all the available commands on the standard output.
- --no-external-commands
-
When used with
--all
, exclude the listing of external "git-*" commands found in the$PATH
. - --no-aliases
-
When used with
--all
, exclude the listing of configured aliases. - --verbose
-
When used with
--all
, print description for all recognized commands. This is the default. - -c
- --config
-
List all available configuration variables. This is a short summary of the list in git-config[1].
- -g
- --guides
-
Print a list of the Git concept guides on the standard output.
- --user-interfaces
-
Print a list of the repository, command and file interfaces documentation on the standard output.
In-repository file interfaces such as
.git/info/exclude
are documented here (see gitrepository-layout[5]), as well as in-tree configuration such as.mailmap
(see gitmailmap[5]).This section of the documentation also covers general or widespread user-interface conventions (e.g. gitcli[7]), and pseudo-configuration such as the file-based
.git/hooks/*
interface described in githooks[5]. - --developer-interfaces
-
Print a list of file formats, protocols and other developer interfaces documentation on the standard output.
- -i
- --info
-
Display manual page for the command in the info format. The info program will be used for that purpose.
- -m
- --man
-
Display manual page for the command in the man format. This option may be used to override a value set in the
help.format
configuration variable.By default the man program will be used to display the manual page, but the
man.viewer
configuration variable may be used to choose other display programs (see below). - -w
- --web
-
Display manual page for the command in the web (HTML) format. A web browser will be used for that purpose.
The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable
help.browser
, orweb.browser
if the former is not set. If neither of these config variables is set, the git web--browse helper script (called by git help) will pick a suitable default. See git-web--browse[1] for more information about this.
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
help.format
If no command-line option is passed, the help.format
configuration
variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this
variable; they make git help behave as their corresponding command-
line option:
-
"man" corresponds to -m|--man,
-
"info" corresponds to -i|--info,
-
"web" or "html" correspond to -w|--web.
help.browser, web.browser, and browser.<tool>.path
The help.browser
, web.browser
and browser.<tool>.path
will also
be checked if the web format is chosen (either by command-line
option or configuration variable). See -w|--web in the OPTIONS
section above and git-web--browse[1].
man.viewer
The man.viewer
configuration variable will be checked if the man
format is chosen. The following values are currently supported:
-
"man": use the man program as usual,
-
"woman": use emacsclient to launch the "woman" mode in emacs (this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22),
-
"konqueror": use kfmclient to open the man page in a new konqueror tab (see Note about konqueror below).
Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding
man.<tool>.cmd
configuration entry (see below).
Multiple values may be given to the man.viewer
configuration
variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order
listed in the configuration file.
For example, this configuration:
[man] viewer = konqueror viewer = woman
will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.
If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified
in the GIT_MAN_VIEWER
environment variable will be tried. If that
fails too, the man program will be tried anyway.
man.<tool>.path
You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by
setting the configuration variable man.<tool>.path
. For example, you
can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting
man.konqueror.path. Otherwise, git help assumes the tool is
available in PATH.
man.<tool>.cmd
When the man viewer, specified by the man.viewer
configuration
variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding
man.<tool>.cmd
configuration variable will be looked up. If this
variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom
command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man
page passed as arguments.
Note about konqueror
When konqueror is specified in the man.viewer
configuration
variable, we launch kfmclient to try to open the man page on an
already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible.
For consistency, we also try such a trick if man.konqueror.path is
set to something like A_PATH_TO/konqueror
. That means we will try to
launch A_PATH_TO/kfmclient
instead.
If you really want to use konqueror, then you can use something like the following:
[man] viewer = konq [man "konq"] cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror
Note about git config --global
Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set
using the --global
flag, for example like this:
$ git config --global help.format web $ git config --global web.browser firefox
as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. See git-config[1] for more information about this.
GIT
Part of the git[1] suite