1gitcli(7) 2========= 3 4NAME 5---- 6gitcli - git command line interface and conventions 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10gitcli 11 12 13DESCRIPTION 14----------- 15 16This manual describes the convention used throughout git CLI. 17 18Many commands take revisions (most often "commits", but sometimes 19"tree-ish", depending on the context and command) and paths as their 20arguments. Here are the rules: 21 22 * Revisions come first and then paths. 23 E.g. in `git diff v1.0 v2.0 arch/x86 include/asm-x86`, 24 `v1.0` and `v2.0` are revisions and `arch/x86` and `include/asm-x86` 25 are paths. 26 27 * When an argument can be misunderstood as either a revision or a path, 28 they can be disambiguated by placing `--` between them. 29 E.g. `git diff -- HEAD` is, "I have a file called HEAD in my work 30 tree. Please show changes between the version I staged in the index 31 and what I have in the work tree for that file". not "show difference 32 between the HEAD commit and the work tree as a whole". You can say 33 `git diff HEAD --` to ask for the latter. 34 35 * Without disambiguating `--`, git makes a reasonable guess, but errors 36 out and asking you to disambiguate when ambiguous. E.g. if you have a 37 file called HEAD in your work tree, `git diff HEAD` is ambiguous, and 38 you have to say either `git diff HEAD --` or `git diff -- HEAD` to 39 disambiguate. 40+ 41When writing a script that is expected to handle random user-input, it is 42a good practice to make it explicit which arguments are which by placing 43disambiguating `--` at appropriate places. 44 45 * Many commands allow wildcards in paths, but you need to protect 46 them from getting globbed by the shell. These two mean different 47 things: 48+ 49-------------------------------- 50$ git checkout -- *.c 51$ git checkout -- \*.c 52-------------------------------- 53+ 54The former lets your shell expand the fileglob, and you are asking 55the dot-C files in your working tree to be overwritten with the version 56in the index. The latter passes the `*.c` to Git, and you are asking 57the paths in the index that match the pattern to be checked out to your 58working tree. After running `git add hello.c; rm hello.c`, you will _not_ 59see `hello.c` in your working tree with the former, but with the latter 60you will. 61 62Here are the rules regarding the "flags" that you should follow when you are 63scripting git: 64 65 * it's preferred to use the non dashed form of git commands, which means that 66 you should prefer `git foo` to `git-foo`. 67 68 * splitting short options to separate words (prefer `git foo -a -b` 69 to `git foo -ab`, the latter may not even work). 70 71 * when a command line option takes an argument, use the 'sticked' form. In 72 other words, write `git foo -oArg` instead of `git foo -o Arg` for short 73 options, and `git foo --long-opt=Arg` instead of `git foo --long-opt Arg` 74 for long options. An option that takes optional option-argument must be 75 written in the 'sticked' form. 76 77 * when you give a revision parameter to a command, make sure the parameter is 78 not ambiguous with a name of a file in the work tree. E.g. do not write 79 `git log -1 HEAD` but write `git log -1 HEAD --`; the former will not work 80 if you happen to have a file called `HEAD` in the work tree. 81 82 * many commands allow a long option "--option" to be abbreviated 83 only to their unique prefix (e.g. if there is no other option 84 whose name begins with "opt", you may be able to spell "--opt" to 85 invoke the "--option" flag), but you should fully spell them out 86 when writing your scripts; later versions of Git may introduce a 87 new option whose name shares the same prefix, e.g. "--optimize", 88 to make a short prefix that used to be unique no longer unique. 89 90 91ENHANCED OPTION PARSER 92---------------------- 93From the git 1.5.4 series and further, many git commands (not all of them at the 94time of the writing though) come with an enhanced option parser. 95 96Here is an exhaustive list of the facilities provided by this option parser. 97 98 99Magic Options 100~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 101Commands which have the enhanced option parser activated all understand a 102couple of magic command line options: 103 104-h:: 105 gives a pretty printed usage of the command. 106+ 107--------------------------------------------- 108$ git describe -h 109usage: git describe [options] <committish>* 110 111 --contains find the tag that comes after the commit 112 --debug debug search strategy on stderr 113 --all use any ref in .git/refs 114 --tags use any tag in .git/refs/tags 115 --abbrev [<n>] use <n> digits to display SHA-1s 116 --candidates <n> consider <n> most recent tags (default: 10) 117--------------------------------------------- 118 119--help-all:: 120 Some git commands take options that are only used for plumbing or that 121 are deprecated, and such options are hidden from the default usage. This 122 option gives the full list of options. 123 124 125Negating options 126~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 127Options with long option names can be negated by prefixing `--no-`. For 128example, `git branch` has the option `--track` which is 'on' by default. You 129can use `--no-track` to override that behaviour. The same goes for `--color` 130and `--no-color`. 131 132 133Aggregating short options 134~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 135Commands that support the enhanced option parser allow you to aggregate short 136options. This means that you can for example use `git rm -rf` or 137`git clean -fdx`. 138 139 140Separating argument from the option 141~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 142You can write the mandatory option parameter to an option as a separate 143word on the command line. That means that all the following uses work: 144 145---------------------------- 146$ git foo --long-opt=Arg 147$ git foo --long-opt Arg 148$ git foo -oArg 149$ git foo -o Arg 150---------------------------- 151 152However, this is *NOT* allowed for switches with an optional value, where the 153'sticked' form must be used: 154---------------------------- 155$ git describe --abbrev HEAD # correct 156$ git describe --abbrev=10 HEAD # correct 157$ git describe --abbrev 10 HEAD # NOT WHAT YOU MEANT 158---------------------------- 159 160 161NOTES ON FREQUENTLY CONFUSED OPTIONS 162------------------------------------ 163 164Many commands that can work on files in the working tree 165and/or in the index can take `--cached` and/or `--index` 166options. Sometimes people incorrectly think that, because 167the index was originally called cache, these two are 168synonyms. They are *not* -- these two options mean very 169different things. 170 171 * The `--cached` option is used to ask a command that 172 usually works on files in the working tree to *only* work 173 with the index. For example, `git grep`, when used 174 without a commit to specify from which commit to look for 175 strings in, usually works on files in the working tree, 176 but with the `--cached` option, it looks for strings in 177 the index. 178 179 * The `--index` option is used to ask a command that 180 usually works on files in the working tree to *also* 181 affect the index. For example, `git stash apply` usually 182 merges changes recorded in a stash to the working tree, 183 but with the `--index` option, it also merges changes to 184 the index as well. 185 186`git apply` command can be used with `--cached` and 187`--index` (but not at the same time). Usually the command 188only affects the files in the working tree, but with 189`--index`, it patches both the files and their index 190entries, and with `--cached`, it modifies only the index 191entries. 192 193See also http://marc.info/?l=git&m=116563135620359 and 194http://marc.info/?l=git&m=119150393620273 for further 195information. 196 197GIT 198--- 199Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite