1git-help(1) 2=========== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-help - Display help information about Git 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git help' [-a|--all [--verbose]] [-g|--guide] 12 [-i|--info|-m|--man|-w|--web] [COMMAND|GUIDE] 13 14DESCRIPTION 15----------- 16 17With no options and no COMMAND or GUIDE given, the synopsis of the 'git' 18command and a list of the most commonly used Git commands are printed 19on the standard output. 20 21If the option `--all` or `-a` is given, all available commands are 22printed on the standard output. 23 24If the option `--guide` or `-g` is given, a list of the useful 25Git guides is also printed on the standard output. 26 27If a command, or a guide, is given, a manual page for that command or 28guide is brought up. The 'man' program is used by default for this 29purpose, but this can be overridden by other options or configuration 30variables. 31 32Note that `git --help ...` is identical to `git help ...` because the 33former is internally converted into the latter. 34 35To display the linkgit:git[1] man page, use `git help git`. 36 37This page can be displayed with 'git help help' or `git help --help` 38 39OPTIONS 40------- 41-a:: 42--all:: 43 Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This 44 option overrides any given command or guide name. 45 When used with `--verbose` print description for all recognized 46 commands. 47 48-g:: 49--guides:: 50 Prints a list of useful guides on the standard output. This 51 option overrides any given command or guide name. 52 53-i:: 54--info:: 55 Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The 56 'info' program will be used for that purpose. 57 58-m:: 59--man:: 60 Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This 61 option may be used to override a value set in the 62 `help.format` configuration variable. 63+ 64By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page, 65but the `man.viewer` configuration variable may be used to choose 66other display programs (see below). 67 68-w:: 69--web:: 70 Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML) 71 format. A web browser will be used for that purpose. 72+ 73The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable 74`help.browser`, or `web.browser` if the former is not set. If none of 75these config variables is set, the 'git web{litdd}browse' helper script 76(called by 'git help') will pick a suitable default. See 77linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1] for more information about this. 78 79CONFIGURATION VARIABLES 80----------------------- 81 82help.format 83~~~~~~~~~~~ 84 85If no command-line option is passed, the `help.format` configuration 86variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this 87variable; they make 'git help' behave as their corresponding command- 88line option: 89 90* "man" corresponds to '-m|--man', 91* "info" corresponds to '-i|--info', 92* "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'. 93 94help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path 95~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 96 97The `help.browser`, `web.browser` and `browser.<tool>.path` will also 98be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command-line 99option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS 100section above and linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1]. 101 102man.viewer 103~~~~~~~~~~ 104 105The `man.viewer` configuration variable will be checked if the 'man' 106format is chosen. The following values are currently supported: 107 108* "man": use the 'man' program as usual, 109* "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs 110(this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22), 111* "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror 112tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below). 113 114Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding 115`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration entry (see below). 116 117Multiple values may be given to the `man.viewer` configuration 118variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order 119listed in the configuration file. 120 121For example, this configuration: 122 123------------------------------------------------ 124 [man] 125 viewer = konqueror 126 viewer = woman 127------------------------------------------------ 128 129will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if 130DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried. 131 132If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified 133in the `GIT_MAN_VIEWER` environment variable will be tried. If that 134fails too, the 'man' program will be tried anyway. 135 136man.<tool>.path 137~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 138 139You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by 140setting the configuration variable `man.<tool>.path`. For example, you 141can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting 142'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is 143available in PATH. 144 145man.<tool>.cmd 146~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 147 148When the man viewer, specified by the `man.viewer` configuration 149variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding 150`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration variable will be looked up. If this 151variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom 152command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man 153page passed as arguments. 154 155Note about konqueror 156~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 157 158When 'konqueror' is specified in the `man.viewer` configuration 159variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an 160already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible. 161 162For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is 163set to something like 'A_PATH_TO/konqueror'. That means we will try to 164launch 'A_PATH_TO/kfmclient' instead. 165 166If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like 167the following: 168 169------------------------------------------------ 170 [man] 171 viewer = konq 172 173 [man "konq"] 174 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror 175------------------------------------------------ 176 177Note about git config --global 178~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 179 180Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set 181using the `--global` flag, for example like this: 182 183------------------------------------------------ 184$ git config --global help.format web 185$ git config --global web.browser firefox 186------------------------------------------------ 187 188as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. 189See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this. 190 191GIT 192--- 193Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite