1git-help(1) 2=========== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-help - Display help information about Git 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git help' [-a|--all [--[no-]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 46--verbose:: 47 When used with `--all` print description for all recognized 48 commands. This is the default. 49 50-c:: 51--config:: 52 List all available configuration variables. This is a short 53 summary of the list in linkgit:git-config[1]. 54 55-g:: 56--guides:: 57 Prints a list of useful guides on the standard output. This 58 option overrides any given command or guide name. 59 60-i:: 61--info:: 62 Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The 63 'info' program will be used for that purpose. 64 65-m:: 66--man:: 67 Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This 68 option may be used to override a value set in the 69 `help.format` configuration variable. 70+ 71By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page, 72but the `man.viewer` configuration variable may be used to choose 73other display programs (see below). 74 75-w:: 76--web:: 77 Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML) 78 format. A web browser will be used for that purpose. 79+ 80The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable 81`help.browser`, or `web.browser` if the former is not set. If none of 82these config variables is set, the 'git web{litdd}browse' helper script 83(called by 'git help') will pick a suitable default. See 84linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1] for more information about this. 85 86CONFIGURATION VARIABLES 87----------------------- 88 89help.format 90~~~~~~~~~~~ 91 92If no command-line option is passed, the `help.format` configuration 93variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this 94variable; they make 'git help' behave as their corresponding command- 95line option: 96 97* "man" corresponds to '-m|--man', 98* "info" corresponds to '-i|--info', 99* "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'. 100 101help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path 102~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 103 104The `help.browser`, `web.browser` and `browser.<tool>.path` will also 105be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command-line 106option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS 107section above and linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1]. 108 109man.viewer 110~~~~~~~~~~ 111 112The `man.viewer` configuration variable will be checked if the 'man' 113format is chosen. The following values are currently supported: 114 115* "man": use the 'man' program as usual, 116* "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs 117(this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22), 118* "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror 119tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below). 120 121Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding 122`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration entry (see below). 123 124Multiple values may be given to the `man.viewer` configuration 125variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order 126listed in the configuration file. 127 128For example, this configuration: 129 130------------------------------------------------ 131 [man] 132 viewer = konqueror 133 viewer = woman 134------------------------------------------------ 135 136will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if 137DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried. 138 139If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified 140in the `GIT_MAN_VIEWER` environment variable will be tried. If that 141fails too, the 'man' program will be tried anyway. 142 143man.<tool>.path 144~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 145 146You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by 147setting the configuration variable `man.<tool>.path`. For example, you 148can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting 149'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is 150available in PATH. 151 152man.<tool>.cmd 153~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 154 155When the man viewer, specified by the `man.viewer` configuration 156variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding 157`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration variable will be looked up. If this 158variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom 159command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man 160page passed as arguments. 161 162Note about konqueror 163~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 164 165When 'konqueror' is specified in the `man.viewer` configuration 166variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an 167already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible. 168 169For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is 170set to something like 'A_PATH_TO/konqueror'. That means we will try to 171launch 'A_PATH_TO/kfmclient' instead. 172 173If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like 174the following: 175 176------------------------------------------------ 177 [man] 178 viewer = konq 179 180 [man "konq"] 181 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror 182------------------------------------------------ 183 184Note about git config --global 185~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 186 187Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set 188using the `--global` flag, for example like this: 189 190------------------------------------------------ 191$ git config --global help.format web 192$ git config --global web.browser firefox 193------------------------------------------------ 194 195as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. 196See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this. 197 198GIT 199--- 200Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite