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