about summary refs log tree commit diff
path: root/Documentation/git-help.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorVincent Ambo <Vincent Ambo>2020-01-11T23·36+0000
committerVincent Ambo <Vincent Ambo>2020-01-11T23·36+0000
commit1b593e1ea4d2af0f6444d9a7788d5d99abd6fde5 (patch)
treee3accb9beed5c4c1b5a05c99db71ab2841f0ed04 /Documentation/git-help.txt
Squashed 'third_party/git/' content from commit cb71568594
git-subtree-dir: third_party/git
git-subtree-split: cb715685942260375e1eb8153b0768a376e4ece7
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-help.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/git-help.txt204
1 files changed, 204 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-help.txt b/Documentation/git-help.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f71db0daa243
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/git-help.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,204 @@
+git-help(1)
+===========
+
+NAME
+----
+git-help - Display help information about Git
+
+SYNOPSIS
+--------
+[verse]
+'git help' [-a|--all [--[no-]verbose]] [-g|--guide]
+	   [-i|--info|-m|--man|-w|--web] [COMMAND|GUIDE]
+
+DESCRIPTION
+-----------
+
+With no options and no COMMAND or GUIDE given, the synopsis of the 'git'
+command and a list of the most commonly used Git commands are printed
+on the standard output.
+
+If the option `--all` or `-a` is given, all available commands are
+printed on the standard output.
+
+If the option `--guide` or `-g` is given, a list of the useful
+Git guides is also printed on the standard output.
+
+If a command, or a guide, is given, a manual page for that command or
+guide is brought up. The 'man' program is used by default for this
+purpose, but this can be overridden by other options or configuration
+variables.
+
+If an alias is given, git shows the definition of the alias on
+standard output. To get the manual page for the aliased command, use
+`git COMMAND --help`.
+
+Note that `git --help ...` is identical to `git help ...` because the
+former is internally converted into the latter.
+
+To display the linkgit:git[1] man page, use `git help git`.
+
+This page can be displayed with 'git help help' or `git help --help`
+
+OPTIONS
+-------
+-a::
+--all::
+	Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This
+	option overrides any given command or guide name.
+
+--verbose::
+	When used with `--all` print description for all recognized
+	commands. This is the default.
+
+-c::
+--config::
+	List all available configuration variables. This is a short
+	summary of the list in linkgit:git-config[1].
+
+-g::
+--guides::
+	Prints a list of useful guides on the standard output. This
+	option overrides any given command or guide name.
+
+-i::
+--info::
+	Display manual page for the command in the 'info' format. The
+	'info' program will be used for that purpose.
+
+-m::
+--man::
+	Display manual page for the command in the 'man' format. This
+	option may be used to override a value set in the
+	`help.format` configuration variable.
++
+By default the 'man' program will be used to display the manual page,
+but the `man.viewer` configuration variable may be used to choose
+other display programs (see below).
+
+-w::
+--web::
+	Display manual page for the command in the 'web' (HTML)
+	format. A web browser will be used for that purpose.
++
+The web browser can be specified using the configuration variable
+`help.browser`, or `web.browser` if the former is not set. If none of
+these config variables is set, the 'git web{litdd}browse' helper script
+(called by 'git help') will pick a suitable default. See
+linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1] for more information about this.
+
+CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
+-----------------------
+
+help.format
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+If no command-line option is passed, the `help.format` configuration
+variable will be checked. The following values are supported for this
+variable; they make 'git help' behave as their corresponding command-
+line option:
+
+* "man" corresponds to '-m|--man',
+* "info" corresponds to '-i|--info',
+* "web" or "html" correspond to '-w|--web'.
+
+help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The `help.browser`, `web.browser` and `browser.<tool>.path` will also
+be checked if the 'web' format is chosen (either by command-line
+option or configuration variable). See '-w|--web' in the OPTIONS
+section above and linkgit:git-web{litdd}browse[1].
+
+man.viewer
+~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The `man.viewer` configuration variable will be checked if the 'man'
+format is chosen. The following values are currently supported:
+
+* "man": use the 'man' program as usual,
+* "woman": use 'emacsclient' to launch the "woman" mode in emacs
+  (this only works starting with emacsclient versions 22),
+* "konqueror": use 'kfmclient' to open the man page in a new konqueror
+  tab (see 'Note about konqueror' below).
+
+Values for other tools can be used if there is a corresponding
+`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration entry (see below).
+
+Multiple values may be given to the `man.viewer` configuration
+variable. Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order
+listed in the configuration file.
+
+For example, this configuration:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+	[man]
+		viewer = konqueror
+		viewer = woman
+------------------------------------------------
+
+will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if
+DISPLAY is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.
+
+If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified
+in the `GIT_MAN_VIEWER` environment variable will be tried.  If that
+fails too, the 'man' program will be tried anyway.
+
+man.<tool>.path
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by
+setting the configuration variable `man.<tool>.path`. For example, you
+can configure the absolute path to konqueror by setting
+'man.konqueror.path'. Otherwise, 'git help' assumes the tool is
+available in PATH.
+
+man.<tool>.cmd
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+When the man viewer, specified by the `man.viewer` configuration
+variables, is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding
+`man.<tool>.cmd` configuration variable will be looked up. If this
+variable exists then the specified tool will be treated as a custom
+command and a shell eval will be used to run the command with the man
+page passed as arguments.
+
+Note about konqueror
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+When 'konqueror' is specified in the `man.viewer` configuration
+variable, we launch 'kfmclient' to try to open the man page on an
+already opened konqueror in a new tab if possible.
+
+For consistency, we also try such a trick if 'man.konqueror.path' is
+set to something like `A_PATH_TO/konqueror`. That means we will try to
+launch `A_PATH_TO/kfmclient` instead.
+
+If you really want to use 'konqueror', then you can use something like
+the following:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+	[man]
+		viewer = konq
+
+	[man "konq"]
+		cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror
+------------------------------------------------
+
+Note about git config --global
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Note that all these configuration variables should probably be set
+using the `--global` flag, for example like this:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+$ git config --global help.format web
+$ git config --global web.browser firefox
+------------------------------------------------
+
+as they are probably more user specific than repository specific.
+See linkgit:git-config[1] for more information about this.
+
+GIT
+---
+Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite