1GIT-HELP(1)                       Git Manual                       GIT-HELP(1)
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NAME

6       git-help - Display help information about Git
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SYNOPSIS

9       git help [-a|--all] [--[no-]verbose] [--[no-]external-commands] [--[no-]aliases]
10       git help [[-i|--info] [-m|--man] [-w|--web]] [<command>|<doc>]
11       git help [-g|--guides]
12       git help [-c|--config]
13       git help [--user-interfaces]
14       git help [--developer-interfaces]
15

DESCRIPTION

17       With no options and no <command> or <doc> given, the synopsis of the
18       git command and a list of the most commonly used Git commands are
19       printed on the standard output.
20
21       If the option --all or -a is given, all available commands are printed
22       on the standard output.
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24       If the option --guides or -g is given, a list of the Git concept guides
25       is also printed on the standard output.
26
27       If a command or other documentation is given, the relevant manual page
28       will be 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 standard
33       output. To get the manual page for the aliased command, use git
34       <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 git(1) man page, use git help git.
40
41       This page can be displayed with git help help or git help --help
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OPTIONS

44       -a, --all
45           Prints all the available commands on the standard output.
46
47       --no-external-commands
48           When used with --all, exclude the listing of external "git-*"
49           commands found in the $PATH.
50
51       --no-aliases
52           When used with --all, exclude the listing of configured aliases.
53
54       --verbose
55           When used with --all print description for all recognized commands.
56           This is the default.
57
58       -c, --config
59           List all available configuration variables. This is a short summary
60           of the list in git-config(1).
61
62       -g, --guides
63           Prints a list of the Git concept guides on the standard output.
64
65       --user-interfaces
66           Prints a list of the repository, command and file interfaces
67           documentation on the standard output.
68
69           In-repository file interfaces such as .git/info/exclude are
70           documented here (see gitrepository-layout(5)), as well as in-tree
71           configuration such as .mailmap (see gitmailmap(5)).
72
73           This section of the documentation also covers general or widespread
74           user-interface conventions (e.g.  gitcli(7)), and
75           pseudo-configuration such as the file-based .git/hooks/* interface
76           described in githooks(5).
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78       --developer-interfaces
79           Print list of file formats, protocols and other developer
80           interfaces documentation on the standard output.
81
82       -i, --info
83           Display manual page for the command in the info format. The info
84           program will be used for that purpose.
85
86       -m, --man
87           Display manual page for the command in the man format. This option
88           may be used to override a value set in the help.format
89           configuration variable.
90
91           By default the man program will be used to display the manual page,
92           but the man.viewer configuration variable may be used to choose
93           other display programs (see below).
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95       -w, --web
96           Display manual page for the command in the web (HTML) format. A web
97           browser will be used for that purpose.
98
99           The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable
100           help.browser, or web.browser if the former is not set. If none of
101           these config variables is set, the git web--browse helper script
102           (called by git help) will pick a suitable default. See git-
103           web--browse(1) for more information about this.
104

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES

106   help.format
107       If no command-line option is passed, the help.format configuration
108       variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this
109       variable; they make git help behave as their corresponding command-
110       line option:
111
112       •   "man" corresponds to -m|--man,
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114       •   "info" corresponds to -i|--info,
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116       •   "web" or "html" correspond to -w|--web.
117
118   help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path
119       The help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path will also be
120       checked if the web format is chosen (either by command-line option or
121       configuration variable). See -w|--web in the OPTIONS section above and
122       git-web--browse(1).
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124   man.viewer
125       The man.viewer configuration variable will be checked if the man format
126       is chosen. The following values are currently supported:
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128       •   "man": use the man program as usual,
129
130       •   "woman": use emacsclient to launch the "woman" mode in emacs (this
131           only works starting with emacsclient versions 22),
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133       •   "konqueror": use kfmclient to open the man page in a new konqueror
134           tab (see Note about konqueror below).
135
136       Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding
137       man.<tool>.cmd configuration entry (see below).
138
139       Multiple values may be given to the man.viewer configuration variable.
140       Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order listed in the
141       configuration file.
142
143       For example, this configuration:
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145                   [man]
146                           viewer = konqueror
147                           viewer = woman
148
149       will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if
150       DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.
151
152       If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer
153       specified in the GIT_MAN_VIEWER environment variable will be tried. If
154       that fails too, the man program will be tried anyway.
155
156   man.<tool>.path
157       You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by
158       setting the configuration variable man.<tool>.path. For example, you
159       can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting
160       man.konqueror.path. Otherwise, git help assumes the tool is available
161       in PATH.
162
163   man.<tool>.cmd
164       When the man viewer, specified by the man.viewer configuration
165       variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding
166       man.<tool>.cmd configuration variable will be looked up. If this
167       variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom
168       command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man
169       page passed as arguments.
170
171   Note about konqueror
172       When konqueror is specified in the man.viewer configuration variable,
173       we launch kfmclient to try to open the man page on an already opened
174       konqueror in a new tab if possible.
175
176       For consistency, we also try such a trick if man.konqueror.path is set
177       to something like A_PATH_TO/konqueror. That means we will try to launch
178       A_PATH_TO/kfmclient instead.
179
180       If you really want to use konqueror, then you can use something like
181       the following:
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183                   [man]
184                           viewer = konq
185
186                   [man "konq"]
187                           cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror
188
189   Note about git config --global
190       Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set
191       using the --global flag, for example like this:
192
193           $ git config --global help.format web
194           $ git config --global web.browser firefox
195
196       as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. See
197       git-config(1) for more information about this.
198

GIT

200       Part of the git(1) suite
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204Git 2.39.1                        2023-01-13                       GIT-HELP(1)
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