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] [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] 13'git notes' copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> <to-object> ) 14'git notes' append [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] 15'git notes' edit [--allow-empty] [<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 [--ignore-missing] [--stdin] [<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 42Notes can also be added to patches prepared with `git format-patch` by 43using the `--notes` option. Such notes are added as a patch commentary 44after a three dash separator line. 45 46To change which notes are shown by 'git log', see the 47"notes.displayRef" configuration in linkgit:git-log[1]. 48 49See the "notes.rewrite.<command>" configuration for a way to carry 50notes across commands that rewrite commits. 51 52 53SUBCOMMANDS 54----------- 55 56list:: 57 List the notes object for a given object. If no object is 58 given, show a list of all note objects and the objects they 59 annotate (in the format "<note object> <annotated object>"). 60 This is the default subcommand if no subcommand is given. 61 62add:: 63 Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). Abort if the 64 object already has notes (use `-f` to overwrite existing notes). 65 However, if you're using `add` interactively (using an editor 66 to supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting - 67 the existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the `edit` 68 subcommand). 69 70copy:: 71 Copy the notes for the first object onto the second object. 72 Abort if the second object already has notes, or if the first 73 object has none (use -f to overwrite existing notes to the 74 second object). This subcommand is equivalent to: 75 `git notes add [-f] -C $(git notes list <from-object>) <to-object>` 76+ 77In `--stdin` mode, take lines in the format 78+ 79---------- 80<from-object> SP <to-object> [ SP <rest> ] LF 81---------- 82+ 83on standard input, and copy the notes from each <from-object> to its 84corresponding <to-object>. (The optional `<rest>` is ignored so that 85the command can read the input given to the `post-rewrite` hook.) 86 87append:: 88 Append to the notes of an existing object (defaults to HEAD). 89 Creates a new notes object if needed. 90 91edit:: 92 Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). 93 94show:: 95 Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). 96 97merge:: 98 Merge the given notes ref into the current notes ref. 99 This will try to merge the changes made by the given 100 notes ref (called "remote") since the merge-base (if 101 any) into the current notes ref (called "local"). 102+ 103If conflicts arise and a strategy for automatically resolving 104conflicting notes (see the -s/--strategy option) is not given, 105the "manual" resolver is used. This resolver checks out the 106conflicting notes in a special worktree (`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), 107and instructs the user to manually resolve the conflicts there. 108When done, the user can either finalize the merge with 109'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with 110'git notes merge --abort'. 111 112remove:: 113 Remove the notes for given objects (defaults to HEAD). When 114 giving zero or one object from the command line, this is 115 equivalent to specifying an empty note message to 116 the `edit` subcommand. 117 118prune:: 119 Remove all notes for non-existing/unreachable objects. 120 121get-ref:: 122 Print the current notes ref. This provides an easy way to 123 retrieve the current notes ref (e.g. from scripts). 124 125OPTIONS 126------- 127-f:: 128--force:: 129 When adding notes to an object that already has notes, 130 overwrite the existing notes (instead of aborting). 131 132-m <msg>:: 133--message=<msg>:: 134 Use the given note message (instead of prompting). 135 If multiple `-m` options are given, their values 136 are concatenated as separate paragraphs. 137 Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a 138 single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. 139 140-F <file>:: 141--file=<file>:: 142 Take the note message from the given file. Use '-' to 143 read the note message from the standard input. 144 Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a 145 single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. 146 147-C <object>:: 148--reuse-message=<object>:: 149 Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the 150 note message. (Use `git notes copy <object>` instead to 151 copy notes between objects.) 152 153-c <object>:: 154--reedit-message=<object>:: 155 Like '-C', but with '-c' the editor is invoked, so that 156 the user can further edit the note message. 157 158--allow-empty:: 159 Allow an empty note object to be stored. The default behavior is 160 to automatically remove empty notes. 161 162--ref <ref>:: 163 Manipulate the notes tree in <ref>. This overrides 164 'GIT_NOTES_REF' and the "core.notesRef" configuration. The ref 165 is taken to be in `refs/notes/` if it is not qualified. 166 167--ignore-missing:: 168 Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an 169 object that does not have notes attached to it. 170 171--stdin:: 172 Also read the object names to remove notes from from the standard 173 input (there is no reason you cannot combine this with object 174 names from the command line). 175 176-n:: 177--dry-run:: 178 Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes 179 would be removed. 180 181-s <strategy>:: 182--strategy=<strategy>:: 183 When merging notes, resolve notes conflicts using the given 184 strategy. The following strategies are recognized: "manual" 185 (default), "ours", "theirs", "union" and "cat_sort_uniq". 186 See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section below for more 187 information on each notes merge strategy. 188 189--commit:: 190 Finalize an in-progress 'git notes merge'. Use this option 191 when you have resolved the conflicts that 'git notes merge' 192 stored in .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. This amends the partial 193 merge commit created by 'git notes merge' (stored in 194 .git/NOTES_MERGE_PARTIAL) by adding the notes in 195 .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. The notes ref stored in the 196 .git/NOTES_MERGE_REF symref is updated to the resulting commit. 197 198--abort:: 199 Abort/reset a in-progress 'git notes merge', i.e. a notes merge 200 with conflicts. This simply removes all files related to the 201 notes merge. 202 203-q:: 204--quiet:: 205 When merging notes, operate quietly. 206 207-v:: 208--verbose:: 209 When merging notes, be more verbose. 210 When pruning notes, report all object names whose notes are 211 removed. 212 213 214DISCUSSION 215---------- 216 217Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object 218(usually information to supplement a commit's message). These blobs 219are taken from notes refs. A notes ref is usually a branch which 220contains "files" whose paths are the object names for the objects 221they describe, with some directory separators included for performance 222reasons footnote:[Permitted pathnames have the form 223'ab'`/`'cd'`/`'ef'`/`'...'`/`'abcdef...': a sequence of directory 224names of two hexadecimal digits each followed by a filename with the 225rest of the object ID.]. 226 227Every notes change creates a new commit at the specified notes ref. 228You can therefore inspect the history of the notes by invoking, e.g., 229`git log -p notes/commits`. Currently the commit message only records 230which operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is 231determined according to the usual rules (see linkgit:git-commit[1]). 232These details may change in the future. 233 234It is also permitted for a notes ref to point directly to a tree 235object, in which case the history of the notes can be read with 236`git log -p -g <refname>`. 237 238 239NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES 240---------------------- 241 242The default notes merge strategy is "manual", which checks out 243conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts 244(`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), and instructs the user to resolve the 245conflicts in that work tree. 246When done, the user can either finalize the merge with 247'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with 248'git notes merge --abort'. 249 250"ours" automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local 251version (i.e. the current notes ref). 252 253"theirs" automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote 254version (i.e. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes 255ref). 256 257"union" automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the 258local and remote versions. 259 260"cat_sort_uniq" is similar to "union", but in addition to concatenating 261the local and remote versions, this strategy also sorts the resulting 262lines, and removes duplicate lines from the result. This is equivalent 263to applying the "cat | sort | uniq" shell pipeline to the local and 264remote versions. This strategy is useful if the notes follow a line-based 265format where one wants to avoid duplicated lines in the merge result. 266Note that if either the local or remote version contain duplicate lines 267prior to the merge, these will also be removed by this notes merge 268strategy. 269 270 271EXAMPLES 272-------- 273 274You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not 275available at the time a commit was written. 276 277------------ 278$ git notes add -m 'Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>' 72a144e2 279$ git show -s 72a144e 280[...] 281 Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> 282 283Notes: 284 Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org> 285------------ 286 287In principle, a note is a regular Git blob, and any kind of 288(non-)format is accepted. You can binary-safely create notes from 289arbitrary files using 'git hash-object': 290 291------------ 292$ cc *.c 293$ blob=$(git hash-object -w a.out) 294$ git notes --ref=built add --allow-empty -C "$blob" HEAD 295------------ 296 297(You cannot simply use `git notes --ref=built add -F a.out HEAD` 298because that is not binary-safe.) 299Of course, it doesn't make much sense to display non-text-format notes 300with 'git log', so if you use such notes, you'll probably need to write 301some special-purpose tools to do something useful with them. 302 303 304CONFIGURATION 305------------- 306 307core.notesRef:: 308 Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of 309 `refs/notes/commits`. Must be an unabbreviated ref name. 310 This setting can be overridden through the environment and 311 command line. 312 313notes.displayRef:: 314 Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in 315 addition to the default set by `core.notesRef` or 316 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit 317 messages with the 'git log' family of commands. 318 This setting can be overridden on the command line or by the 319 'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF' environment variable. 320 See linkgit:git-log[1]. 321 322notes.rewrite.<command>:: 323 When rewriting commits with <command> (currently `amend` or 324 `rebase`), if this variable is `false`, git will not copy 325 notes from the original to the rewritten commit. Defaults to 326 `true`. See also "`notes.rewriteRef`" below. 327+ 328This setting can be overridden by the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' 329environment variable. 330 331notes.rewriteMode:: 332 When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target 333 commit already has a note. Must be one of `overwrite`, 334 `concatenate`, and `ignore`. Defaults to `concatenate`. 335+ 336This setting can be overridden with the `GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE` 337environment variable. 338 339notes.rewriteRef:: 340 When copying notes during a rewrite, specifies the (fully 341 qualified) ref whose notes should be copied. May be a glob, 342 in which case notes in all matching refs will be copied. You 343 may also specify this configuration several times. 344+ 345Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to 346enable note rewriting. 347+ 348Can be overridden with the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' environment variable. 349 350 351ENVIRONMENT 352----------- 353 354'GIT_NOTES_REF':: 355 Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of `refs/notes/commits`. 356 This overrides the `core.notesRef` setting. 357 358'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF':: 359 Colon-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs, 360 in addition to the default from `core.notesRef` or 361 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit 362 messages. 363 This overrides the `notes.displayRef` setting. 364+ 365A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob that 366does not match any refs is silently ignored. 367 368'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE':: 369 When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target 370 commit already has a note. 371 Must be one of `overwrite`, `concatenate`, and `ignore`. 372 This overrides the `core.rewriteMode` setting. 373 374'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF':: 375 When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original 376 to the rewritten commit. Must be a colon-delimited list of 377 refs or globs. 378+ 379If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends 380on the `notes.rewrite.<command>` and `notes.rewriteRef` settings. 381 382GIT 383--- 384Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite