1git-notes(1) 2============ 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-notes - Add or inspect object notes 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git notes' [list [<object>]] 12'git notes' add [-f] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] 13'git notes' copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> <to-object> ) 14'git notes' append [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] 15'git notes' edit [<object>] 16'git notes' show [<object>] 17'git notes' merge [-v | -q] [-s <strategy> ] <notes_ref> 18'git notes' merge --commit [-v | -q] 19'git notes' merge --abort [-v | -q] 20'git notes' remove [--ignore-missing] [--stdin] [<object>...] 21'git notes' prune [-n | -v] 22'git notes' get-ref 23 24 25DESCRIPTION 26----------- 27Adds, removes, or reads notes attached to objects, without touching 28the objects themselves. 29 30By default, notes are saved to and read from `refs/notes/commits`, but 31this default can be overridden. See the OPTIONS, CONFIGURATION, and 32ENVIRONMENT sections below. If this ref does not exist, it will be 33quietly created when it is first needed to store a note. 34 35A typical use of notes is to supplement a commit message without 36changing the commit itself. Notes can be shown by 'git log' along with 37the original commit message. To distinguish these notes from the 38message stored in the commit object, the notes are indented like the 39message, after an unindented line saying "Notes (<refname>):" (or 40"Notes:" for `refs/notes/commits`). 41 42To change which notes are shown by 'git log', see the 43"notes.displayRef" configuration in linkgit:git-log[1]. 44 45See the "notes.rewrite.<command>" configuration for a way to carry 46notes across commands that rewrite commits. 47 48 49SUBCOMMANDS 50----------- 51 52list:: 53 List the notes object for a given object. If no object is 54 given, show a list of all note objects and the objects they 55 annotate (in the format "<note object> <annotated object>"). 56 This is the default subcommand if no subcommand is given. 57 58add:: 59 Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). Abort if the 60 object already has notes (use `-f` to overwrite existing notes). 61 However, if you're using `add` interactively (using an editor 62 to supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting - 63 the existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the `edit` 64 subcommand). 65 66copy:: 67 Copy the notes for the first object onto the second object. 68 Abort if the second object already has notes, or if the first 69 object has none (use -f to overwrite existing notes to the 70 second object). This subcommand is equivalent to: 71 `git notes add [-f] -C $(git notes list <from-object>) <to-object>` 72+ 73In `--stdin` mode, take lines in the format 74+ 75---------- 76<from-object> SP <to-object> [ SP <rest> ] LF 77---------- 78+ 79on standard input, and copy the notes from each <from-object> to its 80corresponding <to-object>. (The optional `<rest>` is ignored so that 81the command can read the input given to the `post-rewrite` hook.) 82 83append:: 84 Append to the notes of an existing object (defaults to HEAD). 85 Creates a new notes object if needed. 86 87edit:: 88 Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). 89 90show:: 91 Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). 92 93merge:: 94 Merge the given notes ref into the current notes ref. 95 This will try to merge the changes made by the given 96 notes ref (called "remote") since the merge-base (if 97 any) into the current notes ref (called "local"). 98+ 99If conflicts arise and a strategy for automatically resolving 100conflicting notes (see the -s/--strategy option) is not given, 101the "manual" resolver is used. This resolver checks out the 102conflicting notes in a special worktree (`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), 103and instructs the user to manually resolve the conflicts there. 104When done, the user can either finalize the merge with 105'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with 106'git notes merge --abort'. 107 108remove:: 109 Remove the notes for given objects (defaults to HEAD). When 110 giving zero or one object from the command line, this is 111 equivalent to specifying an empty note message to 112 the `edit` subcommand. 113 114prune:: 115 Remove all notes for non-existing/unreachable objects. 116 117get-ref:: 118 Print the current notes ref. This provides an easy way to 119 retrieve the current notes ref (e.g. from scripts). 120 121OPTIONS 122------- 123-f:: 124--force:: 125 When adding notes to an object that already has notes, 126 overwrite the existing notes (instead of aborting). 127 128-m <msg>:: 129--message=<msg>:: 130 Use the given note message (instead of prompting). 131 If multiple `-m` options are given, their values 132 are concatenated as separate paragraphs. 133 Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a 134 single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. 135 136-F <file>:: 137--file=<file>:: 138 Take the note message from the given file. Use '-' to 139 read the note message from the standard input. 140 Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a 141 single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. 142 143-C <object>:: 144--reuse-message=<object>:: 145 Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the 146 note message. (Use `git notes copy <object>` instead to 147 copy notes between objects.) 148 149-c <object>:: 150--reedit-message=<object>:: 151 Like '-C', but with '-c' the editor is invoked, so that 152 the user can further edit the note message. 153 154--ref <ref>:: 155 Manipulate the notes tree in <ref>. This overrides 156 'GIT_NOTES_REF' and the "core.notesRef" configuration. The ref 157 is taken to be in `refs/notes/` if it is not qualified. 158 159--ignore-missing:: 160 Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an 161 object that does not have notes attached to it. 162 163--stdin:: 164 Also read the object names to remove notes from from the standard 165 input (there is no reason you cannot combine this with object 166 names from the command line). 167 168-n:: 169--dry-run:: 170 Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes 171 would be removed. 172 173-s <strategy>:: 174--strategy=<strategy>:: 175 When merging notes, resolve notes conflicts using the given 176 strategy. The following strategies are recognized: "manual" 177 (default), "ours", "theirs", "union" and "cat_sort_uniq". 178 See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section below for more 179 information on each notes merge strategy. 180 181--commit:: 182 Finalize an in-progress 'git notes merge'. Use this option 183 when you have resolved the conflicts that 'git notes merge' 184 stored in .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. This amends the partial 185 merge commit created by 'git notes merge' (stored in 186 .git/NOTES_MERGE_PARTIAL) by adding the notes in 187 .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. The notes ref stored in the 188 .git/NOTES_MERGE_REF symref is updated to the resulting commit. 189 190--abort:: 191 Abort/reset a in-progress 'git notes merge', i.e. a notes merge 192 with conflicts. This simply removes all files related to the 193 notes merge. 194 195-q:: 196--quiet:: 197 When merging notes, operate quietly. 198 199-v:: 200--verbose:: 201 When merging notes, be more verbose. 202 When pruning notes, report all object names whose notes are 203 removed. 204 205 206DISCUSSION 207---------- 208 209Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object 210(usually information to supplement a commit's message). These blobs 211are taken from notes refs. A notes ref is usually a branch which 212contains "files" whose paths are the object names for the objects 213they describe, with some directory separators included for performance 214reasons footnote:[Permitted pathnames have the form 215'ab'`/`'cd'`/`'ef'`/`'...'`/`'abcdef...': a sequence of directory 216names of two hexadecimal digits each followed by a filename with the 217rest of the object ID.]. 218 219Every notes change creates a new commit at the specified notes ref. 220You can therefore inspect the history of the notes by invoking, e.g., 221`git log -p notes/commits`. Currently the commit message only records 222which operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is 223determined according to the usual rules (see linkgit:git-commit[1]). 224These details may change in the future. 225 226It is also permitted for a notes ref to point directly to a tree 227object, in which case the history of the notes can be read with 228`git log -p -g <refname>`. 229 230 231NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES 232---------------------- 233 234The default notes merge strategy is "manual", which checks out 235conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts 236(`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), and instructs the user to resolve the 237conflicts in that work tree. 238When done, the user can either finalize the merge with 239'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with 240'git notes merge --abort'. 241 242"ours" automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local 243version (i.e. the current notes ref). 244 245"theirs" automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote 246version (i.e. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes 247ref). 248 249"union" automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the 250local and remote versions. 251 252"cat_sort_uniq" is similar to "union", but in addition to concatenating 253the local and remote versions, this strategy also sorts the resulting 254lines, and removes duplicate lines from the result. This is equivalent 255to applying the "cat | sort | uniq" shell pipeline to the local and 256remote versions. This strategy is useful if the notes follow a line-based 257format where one wants to avoid duplicated lines in the merge result. 258Note that if either the local or remote version contain duplicate lines 259prior to the merge, these will also be removed by this notes merge 260strategy. 261 262 263EXAMPLES 264-------- 265 266You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not 267available at the time a commit was written. 268 269------------ 270$ git notes add -m 'Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>' 72a144e2 271$ git show -s 72a144e 272[...] 273 Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> 274 275Notes: 276 Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org> 277------------ 278 279In principle, a note is a regular Git blob, and any kind of 280(non-)format is accepted. You can binary-safely create notes from 281arbitrary files using 'git hash-object': 282 283------------ 284$ cc *.c 285$ blob=$(git hash-object -w a.out) 286$ git notes --ref=built add -C "$blob" HEAD 287------------ 288 289(You cannot simply use `git notes --ref=built add -F a.out HEAD` 290because that is not binary-safe.) 291Of course, it doesn't make much sense to display non-text-format notes 292with 'git log', so if you use such notes, you'll probably need to write 293some special-purpose tools to do something useful with them. 294 295 296CONFIGURATION 297------------- 298 299core.notesRef:: 300 Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of 301 `refs/notes/commits`. Must be an unabbreviated ref name. 302 This setting can be overridden through the environment and 303 command line. 304 305notes.displayRef:: 306 Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in 307 addition to the default set by `core.notesRef` or 308 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit 309 messages with the 'git log' family of commands. 310 This setting can be overridden on the command line or by the 311 'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF' environment variable. 312 See linkgit:git-log[1]. 313 314notes.rewrite.<command>:: 315 When rewriting commits with <command> (currently `amend` or 316 `rebase`), if this variable is `false`, git will not copy 317 notes from the original to the rewritten commit. Defaults to 318 `true`. See also "`notes.rewriteRef`" below. 319+ 320This setting can be overridden by the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' 321environment variable. 322 323notes.rewriteMode:: 324 When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target 325 commit already has a note. Must be one of `overwrite`, 326 `concatenate`, and `ignore`. Defaults to `concatenate`. 327+ 328This setting can be overridden with the `GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE` 329environment variable. 330 331notes.rewriteRef:: 332 When copying notes during a rewrite, specifies the (fully 333 qualified) ref whose notes should be copied. May be a glob, 334 in which case notes in all matching refs will be copied. You 335 may also specify this configuration several times. 336+ 337Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to 338enable note rewriting. 339+ 340Can be overridden with the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' environment variable. 341 342 343ENVIRONMENT 344----------- 345 346'GIT_NOTES_REF':: 347 Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of `refs/notes/commits`. 348 This overrides the `core.notesRef` setting. 349 350'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF':: 351 Colon-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs, 352 in addition to the default from `core.notesRef` or 353 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit 354 messages. 355 This overrides the `notes.displayRef` setting. 356+ 357A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob that 358does not match any refs is silently ignored. 359 360'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE':: 361 When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target 362 commit already has a note. 363 Must be one of `overwrite`, `concatenate`, and `ignore`. 364 This overrides the `core.rewriteMode` setting. 365 366'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF':: 367 When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original 368 to the rewritten commit. Must be a colon-delimited list of 369 refs or globs. 370+ 371If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends 372on the `notes.rewrite.<command>` and `notes.rewriteRef` settings. 373 374 375Author 376------ 377Written by Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de> and 378Johan Herland <johan@herland.net> 379 380Documentation 381------------- 382Documentation by Johannes Schindelin and Johan Herland 383 384GIT 385--- 386Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite