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 32If an alias is given, git shows the definition of the alias on 33standard output. To get the manual page for the aliased command, use 34`git COMMAND --help`. 35 36Note that `git --help ...` is identical to `git help ...` because the 37former is internally converted into the latter. 38 39To display the linkgit:git[1] man page, use `git help git`. 40 41This page can be displayed with 'git help help' or `git help --help` 42 43OPTIONS 44------- 45-a:: 46--all:: 47 Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This 48 option overrides any given command or guide name. 49 50--verbose:: 51 When used with `--all` print description for all recognized 52 commands. This is the default. 53 54-c:: 55--config:: 56 List all available configuration variables. This is a short 57 summary of the list in linkgit:git-config[1]. 58 59-g:: 60--guides:: 61 Prints a list of useful guides on the standard output. This 62 option overrides any given command or guide name. 63 64-i:: 65--info:: 66 Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The 67 'info' program will be used for that purpose. 68 69-m:: 70--man:: 71 Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This 72 option may be used to override a value set in the 73 `help.format` configuration variable. 74+ 75By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page, 76but the `man.viewer` configuration variable may be used to choose 77other display programs (see below). 78 79-w:: 80--web:: 81 Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML) 82 format. A web browser will be used for that purpose. 83+ 84The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable 85`help.browser`, or `web.browser` if the former is not set. If none of 86these config variables is set, the 'git web{litdd}browse' helper script 87(called by 'git help') will pick a suitable default. See 88linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1] for more information about this. 89 90CONFIGURATION VARIABLES 91----------------------- 92 93help.format 94~~~~~~~~~~~ 95 96If no command-line option is passed, the `help.format` configuration 97variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this 98variable; they make 'git help' behave as their corresponding command- 99line option: 100 101* "man" corresponds to '-m|--man', 102* "info" corresponds to '-i|--info', 103* "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'. 104 105help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path 106~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 107 108The `help.browser`, `web.browser` and `browser.<tool>.path` will also 109be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command-line 110option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS 111section above and linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1]. 112 113man.viewer 114~~~~~~~~~~ 115 116The `man.viewer` configuration variable will be checked if the 'man' 117format is chosen. The following values are currently supported: 118 119* "man": use the 'man' program as usual, 120* "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs 121 (this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22), 122* "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror 123 tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below). 124 125Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding 126`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration entry (see below). 127 128Multiple values may be given to the `man.viewer` configuration 129variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order 130listed in the configuration file. 131 132For example, this configuration: 133 134------------------------------------------------ 135 [man] 136 viewer = konqueror 137 viewer = woman 138------------------------------------------------ 139 140will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if 141DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried. 142 143If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified 144in the `GIT_MAN_VIEWER` environment variable will be tried. If that 145fails too, the 'man' program will be tried anyway. 146 147man.<tool>.path 148~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 149 150You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by 151setting the configuration variable `man.<tool>.path`. For example, you 152can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting 153'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is 154available in PATH. 155 156man.<tool>.cmd 157~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 158 159When the man viewer, specified by the `man.viewer` configuration 160variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding 161`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration variable will be looked up. If this 162variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom 163command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man 164page passed as arguments. 165 166Note about konqueror 167~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 168 169When 'konqueror' is specified in the `man.viewer` configuration 170variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an 171already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible. 172 173For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is 174set to something like `A_PATH_TO/konqueror`. That means we will try to 175launch `A_PATH_TO/kfmclient` instead. 176 177If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like 178the following: 179 180------------------------------------------------ 181 [man] 182 viewer = konq 183 184 [man "konq"] 185 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror 186------------------------------------------------ 187 188Note about git config --global 189~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 190 191Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set 192using the `--global` flag, for example like this: 193 194------------------------------------------------ 195$ git config --global help.format web 196$ git config --global web.browser firefox 197------------------------------------------------ 198 199as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. 200See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this. 201 202GIT 203--- 204Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite