1GIT-HELP(1) Git Manual GIT-HELP(1)
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6 git-help - Display help information about Git
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9 git help [-a|--all] [--[no-]verbose] [--[no-]external-commands] [--[no-]aliases]
10 git help [[-i|--info] [-m|--man] [-w|--web]] [<command>|<guide>]
11 git help [-g|--guides]
12 git help [-c|--config]
13
15 With no options and no <command> or <guide> given, the synopsis of the
16 git command and a list of the most commonly used Git commands are
17 printed on the standard output.
18 If the option --all or -a is given, all available commands are printed
20 on the standard output.
21 If the option --guides or -g is given, a list of the Git concept guides
23 is also printed on the standard output.
24 If a command, or a guide, is given, a manual page for that command or
26 guide is brought up. The man program is used by default for this
27 purpose, but this can be overridden by other options or configuration
28 variables.
29 If an alias is given, git shows the definition of the alias on standard
31 output. To get the manual page for the aliased command, use git
32 <command> --help.
33 Note that git --help ... is identical to git help ... because the
35 former is internally converted into the latter.
36 To display the git(1) man page, use git help git.
38 This page can be displayed with git help help or git help --help
40
42 -a, --all
43 Prints all the available commands on the standard output.
44 --no-external-commands
46 When used with --all, exclude the listing of external "git-*"
47 commands found in the $PATH.
48 --no-aliases
50 When used with --all, exclude the listing of configured aliases.
51 --verbose
53 When used with --all print description for all recognized commands.
54 This is the default.
55 -c, --config
57 List all available configuration variables. This is a short summary
58 of the list in git-config(1).
59 -g, --guides
61 Prints a list of the Git concept guides on the standard output.
62 -i, --info
64 Display manual page for the command in the info format. The info
65 program will be used for that purpose.
66 -m, --man
68 Display manual page for the command in the man format. This option
69 may be used to override a value set in the help.format
70 configuration variable.
71 By default the man program will be used to display the manual page,
73 but the man.viewer configuration variable may be used to choose
74 other display programs (see below).
75 -w, --web
77 Display manual page for the command in the web (HTML) format. A web
78 browser will be used for that purpose.
79 The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable
81 help.browser, or web.browser if the former is not set. If none of
82 these config variables is set, the git web--browse helper script
83 (called by git help) will pick a suitable default. See git-
84 web--browse(1) for more information about this.
85
87 help.format
88 If no command-line option is passed, the help.format configuration
89 variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this
90 variable; they make git help behave as their corresponding command-
91 line option:
92 • "man" corresponds to -m|--man,
94 • "info" corresponds to -i|--info,
96 • "web" or "html" correspond to -w|--web.
98 help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path
100 The help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path will also be
101 checked if the web format is chosen (either by command-line option or
102 configuration variable). See -w|--web in the OPTIONS section above and
103 git-web--browse(1).
104 man.viewer
106 The man.viewer configuration variable will be checked if the man format
107 is chosen. The following values are currently supported:
108 • "man": use the man program as usual,
110 • "woman": use emacsclient to launch the "woman" mode in emacs (this
112 only works starting with emacsclient versions 22),
113 • "konqueror": use kfmclient to open the man page in a new konqueror
115 tab (see Note about konqueror below).
116 Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding
118 man.<tool>.cmd configuration entry (see below).
119 Multiple values may be given to the man.viewer configuration variable.
121 Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order listed in the
122 configuration file.
123 For example, this configuration:
125 [man]
127 viewer = konqueror
128 viewer = woman
129 will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if
131 DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.
132 If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer
134 specified in the GIT_MAN_VIEWER environment variable will be tried. If
135 that fails too, the man program will be tried anyway.
136 man.<tool>.path
138 You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by
139 setting the configuration variable man.<tool>.path. For example, you
140 can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting
141 man.konqueror.path. Otherwise, git help assumes the tool is available
142 in PATH.
143 man.<tool>.cmd
145 When the man viewer, specified by the man.viewer configuration
146 variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding
147 man.<tool>.cmd configuration variable will be looked up. If this
148 variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom
149 command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man
150 page passed as arguments.
151 Note about konqueror
153 When konqueror is specified in the man.viewer configuration variable,
154 we launch kfmclient to try to open the man page on an already opened
155 konqueror in a new tab if possible.
156 For consistency, we also try such a trick if man.konqueror.path is set
158 to something like A_PATH_TO/konqueror. That means we will try to launch
159 A_PATH_TO/kfmclient instead.
160 If you really want to use konqueror, then you can use something like
162 the following:
163 [man]
165 viewer = konq
166 [man "konq"]
168 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror
169 Note about git config --global
171 Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set
172 using the --global flag, for example like this:
173 $ git config --global help.format web
175 $ git config --global web.browser firefox
176 as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. See
178 git-config(1) for more information about this.
179
181 Part of the git(1) suite
182Git 2.36.1 2022-05-05 GIT-HELP(1)