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 32If an alias is given, git shows the definition of the alias on 33standard output. To get the manual page for the aliased command, use 34`git COMMAND --help`. 35 36Note that `git --help ...` is identical to `git help ...` because the 37former is internally converted into the latter. 38 39To display the linkgit:git[1] man page, use `git help git`. 40 41This page can be displayed with 'git help help' or `git help --help` 42 43OPTIONS 44------- 45-a:: 46--all:: 47 Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This 48 option overrides any given command or guide name. 49 When used with `--verbose` print description for all recognized 50 commands. 51 52-c:: 53--config:: 54 List all available configuration variables. This is a short 55 summary of the list in linkgit:git-config[1]. 56 57-g:: 58--guides:: 59 Prints a list of useful guides on the standard output. This 60 option overrides any given command or guide name. 61 62-i:: 63--info:: 64 Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The 65 'info' program will be used for that purpose. 66 67-m:: 68--man:: 69 Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This 70 option may be used to override a value set in the 71 `help.format` configuration variable. 72+ 73By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page, 74but the `man.viewer` configuration variable may be used to choose 75other display programs (see below). 76 77-w:: 78--web:: 79 Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML) 80 format. A web browser will be used for that purpose. 81+ 82The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable 83`help.browser`, or `web.browser` if the former is not set. If none of 84these config variables is set, the 'git web{litdd}browse' helper script 85(called by 'git help') will pick a suitable default. See 86linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1] for more information about this. 87 88CONFIGURATION VARIABLES 89----------------------- 90 91help.format 92~~~~~~~~~~~ 93 94If no command-line option is passed, the `help.format` configuration 95variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this 96variable; they make 'git help' behave as their corresponding command- 97line option: 98 99* "man" corresponds to '-m|--man', 100* "info" corresponds to '-i|--info', 101* "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'. 102 103help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path 104~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 105 106The `help.browser`, `web.browser` and `browser.<tool>.path` will also 107be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command-line 108option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS 109section above and linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1]. 110 111man.viewer 112~~~~~~~~~~ 113 114The `man.viewer` configuration variable will be checked if the 'man' 115format is chosen. The following values are currently supported: 116 117* "man": use the 'man' program as usual, 118* "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs 119(this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22), 120* "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror 121tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below). 122 123Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding 124`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration entry (see below). 125 126Multiple values may be given to the `man.viewer` configuration 127variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order 128listed in the configuration file. 129 130For example, this configuration: 131 132------------------------------------------------ 133 [man] 134 viewer = konqueror 135 viewer = woman 136------------------------------------------------ 137 138will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if 139DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried. 140 141If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified 142in the `GIT_MAN_VIEWER` environment variable will be tried. If that 143fails too, the 'man' program will be tried anyway. 144 145man.<tool>.path 146~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 147 148You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by 149setting the configuration variable `man.<tool>.path`. For example, you 150can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting 151'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is 152available in PATH. 153 154man.<tool>.cmd 155~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 156 157When the man viewer, specified by the `man.viewer` configuration 158variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding 159`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration variable will be looked up. If this 160variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom 161command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man 162page passed as arguments. 163 164Note about konqueror 165~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 166 167When 'konqueror' is specified in the `man.viewer` configuration 168variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an 169already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible. 170 171For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is 172set to something like 'A_PATH_TO/konqueror'. That means we will try to 173launch 'A_PATH_TO/kfmclient' instead. 174 175If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like 176the following: 177 178------------------------------------------------ 179 [man] 180 viewer = konq 181 182 [man "konq"] 183 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror 184------------------------------------------------ 185 186Note about git config --global 187~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 188 189Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set 190using the `--global` flag, for example like this: 191 192------------------------------------------------ 193$ git config --global help.format web 194$ git config --global web.browser firefox 195------------------------------------------------ 196 197as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. 198See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this. 199 200GIT 201--- 202Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite