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