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