3 Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>
5 This is the manual for tig, the ncurses-based text-mode interface for git.
6 Tig allows you to browse changes in a git repository and can additionally act
7 as a pager for output of various git commands. When used as a pager, it will
8 display input from stdin and colorize it.
10 When browsing repositories, tig uses the underlying git commands to present
11 the user with various views, such as summarized commit log and showing the
12 commit with the log message, diffstat, and the diff.
14 ifndef::backend-docbook[]
18 endif::backend-docbook[]
20 [[calling-conventions]]
28 If stdin is a pipe, any log or diff options will be ignored and the pager view
29 will be opened loading data from stdin. The pager mode can be used for
30 colorizing output from various git commands.
32 Example on how to colorize the output of git-show(1):
34 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
36 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
42 All git command options specified on the command line will be passed to the
43 given command and all will be shell quoted before they are passed to the
46 NOTE: If you specify options for the main view, you should not use the
47 `--pretty` option as this option will be set automatically to the format
48 expected by the main view.
50 Example on how to open the log view and show both author and committer
53 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
54 $ tig log --pretty=fuller
55 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
57 See the <<refspec, "Specifying revisions">> section below for an introduction
58 to revision options supported by the git commands. For details on specific git
59 command options, refer to the man page of the command in question.
65 Several options related to the interface with git can be configured via
72 Commits that are referenced by tags and branch heads will be marked by the
73 reference name surrounded by '[' and ']':
75 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
76 2006-03-26 19:42 Petr Baudis | [cogito-0.17.1] Cogito 0.17.1
77 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
79 If you want to filter out certain directories under `.git/refs/`, say `tmp`
80 you can do it by setting the following variable:
82 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
83 $ TIG_LS_REMOTE="git ls-remote . | sed /\/tmp\//d" tig
84 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
86 Or set the variable permanently in your environment.
89 Set command for retrieving all repository references. The command
90 should output data in the same format as git-ls-remote(1).
96 It is possible to alter which commands are used for the different views. If
97 for example you prefer commits in the main view to be sorted by date and only
98 show 500 commits, use:
100 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
101 $ TIG_MAIN_CMD="git log --date-order -n500 --pretty=raw %s" tig
102 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
104 Or set the variable permanently in your environment.
106 Notice, how `%s` is used to specify the commit reference. There can be a
107 maximum of 5 `%s` ref specifications.
110 The command used for the diff view. By default, git show is used
114 The command used for the log view. If you prefer to have both
115 author and committer shown in the log view be sure to pass
116 `--pretty=fuller` to git log.
119 The command used for the main view. Note, you must always specify
120 the option: `--pretty=raw` since the main view parser expects to
128 The command used for the tree view. Takes two arguments, the first
129 is the revision ID and the second is the path of the directory tree,
130 empty for the root directory. Defaults to "git ls-tree %s %s".
133 The command used for the blob view. Takes one argument which is
134 the blob ID. Defaults to "git cat-file blob %s".
140 The display consists of a status window on the last line of the screen and one
141 or more views. The default is to only show one view at the time but it is
142 possible to split both the main and log view to also show the commit diff.
144 If you are in the log view and press 'Enter' when the current line is a commit
147 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
148 commit 4d55caff4cc89335192f3e566004b4ceef572521
149 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
151 You will split the view so that the log view is displayed in the top window
152 and the diff view in the bottom window. You can switch between the two views
153 by pressing 'Tab'. To maximize the log view again, simply press 'l'.
156 Current Head and Commit ID
157 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
159 The viewer keeps track of both what head and commit ID you are currently
160 viewing. The commit ID will follow the cursor line and change every time
161 you highlight a different commit. Whenever you reopen the diff view it will be
162 reloaded, if the commit ID changed.
164 The head ID is used when opening the main and log view to indicate from what
165 revision to show history.
171 Various 'views' of a repository is presented. Each view is based on output
172 from an external command, most often 'git log', 'git diff', or 'git show'.
175 Is the default view, and it shows a one line summary of each commit
176 in the chosen list of revisions. The summary includes commit date,
177 author, and the first line of the log message. Additionally, any
178 repository references, such as tags, will be shown.
181 Presents a more rich view of the revision log showing the whole log
182 message and the diffstat.
185 Shows either the diff of the current working tree, that is, what
186 has changed since the last commit, or the commit diff complete
187 with log message, diffstat and diff.
190 Lists directory trees associated with the current revision allowing
191 subdirectories to be descended or ascended and file blobs to be
195 Displays the file content or "blob" of data associated with a file
199 Displays status of files in the working tree and allows changes to be
200 staged/unstaged as well as adding of untracked files.
203 Displays diff changes for staged or unstanged files being tracked or
204 file content of untracked files.
207 Is used for displaying both input from stdin and output from git
208 commands entered in the internal prompt.
211 Displays key binding quick reference.
217 Each view has a title window which shows the name of the view, current commit
218 ID if available, and where the view is positioned:
220 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
221 [main] c622eefaa485995320bc743431bae0d497b1d875 - commit 1 of 61 (1%)
222 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
224 By default, the title of the current view is highlighted using bold font. For
225 long loading views (taking over 3 seconds) the time since loading started will
228 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
229 [main] 77d9e40fbcea3238015aea403e06f61542df9a31 - commit 1 of 779 (0%) 5s
230 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
235 Below the default key bindings are shown.
241 `-------`--------------------------------------------------------------------
243 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
244 m Switch to main view.
245 d Switch to diff view.
246 l Switch to log view.
247 p Switch to pager view.
248 t Switch to (directory) tree view.
249 f Switch to (file) blob view.
250 h Switch to help view
251 S Switch to status view
252 c Switch to stage view
253 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
255 [[view-manipulation]]
259 `-------`--------------------------------------------------------------------
261 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
262 q Close view, if multiple views are open it will jump back to the \
263 previous view in the view stack. If it is the last open view it \
264 will quit. Use 'Q' to quit all views at once.
265 Enter This key is "context sensitive" depending on what view you are \
266 currently in. When in log view on a commit line or in the main \
267 view, split the view and show the commit diff. In the diff view \
268 pressing Enter will simply scroll the view one line down.
269 Tab Switch to next view.
270 Up This key is "context sensitive" and will move the cursor one \
271 line up. However, if you opened a diff view from the main view \
272 (split- or full-screen) it will change the cursor to point to \
273 the previous commit in the main view and update the diff view \
275 Down Similar to 'Up' but will move down.
276 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
282 `-------`--------------------------------------------------------------------
284 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
285 j Move cursor one line up.
286 k Move cursor one line down.
288 -,a Move cursor one page up.
289 PgDown Space Move cursor one page down.
290 Home Jump to first line.
291 End Jump to last line.
292 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
298 `-------`--------------------------------------------------------------------
300 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
301 Insert Scroll view one line up.
302 Delete Scroll view one line down.
303 w Scroll view one page up.
304 s Scroll view one page down.
305 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
311 `-------`--------------------------------------------------------------------
313 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
314 / Search the view. Opens a prompt for entering search regex to use.
315 ? Search backwards in the view. Also prompts for regex.
316 n Find next match for the current search regex.
317 N Find previous match for the current search regex.
318 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
324 `-------`--------------------------------------------------------------------
326 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
329 z Stop all background loading. This can be useful if you use \
330 tig in a repository with a long history without limiting \
333 '.' Toggle line numbers on/off.
334 g Toggle revision graph visualization on/off.
335 ':' Open prompt. This allows you to specify what git command \
336 to run. Example `:log -p`
337 u Update status of file. In the status view, this allows you to add an \
338 untracked file or stage changes to a file for next commit (similar to \
339 running git-add <filename>). In the stage view, when pressing this on \
340 a diff chunk line stages only that chunk for next commit, when not on \
341 a diff chunk line all changes in the displayed diff is staged.
342 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
345 Revision Specification
346 ----------------------
348 This section describes various ways to specify what revisions to display or
349 otherwise limit the view to. Tig does not itself parse the described
350 revision options so refer to the relevant git man pages for further
351 information. Relevant man pages besides git-log(1) are git-diff(1) and
354 You can tune the interaction with git by making use of the options explained
355 in this section. For example, by configuring the environment variables
356 described in the <<history-commands, "History commands">> section.
362 If you are interested only in those revisions that made changes to a specific
363 file (or even several files) list the files like this:
365 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
366 $ tig log Makefile README
367 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
369 To avoid ambiguity with repository references such as tag name, be sure to
370 separate file names from other git options using "\--". So if you have a file
371 named 'master' it will clash with the reference named 'master', and thus you
374 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
376 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
378 NOTE: For the main view, avoiding ambiguity will in some cases require you to
379 specify two "\--" options. The first will make tig stop option processing
380 and the latter will be passed to git log.
382 [[date-number-limiting]]
383 Limit by Date or Number
384 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
386 To speed up interaction with git, you can limit the amount of commits to show
387 both for the log and main view. Either limit by date using e.g.
388 `--since=1.month` or limit by the number of commits using `-n400`.
390 If you are only interested in changed that happened between two dates you can
393 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
394 $ tig -- --after="May 5th" --before="2006-05-16 15:44"
395 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
397 NOTE: If you want to avoid having to quote dates containing spaces you can use
398 "." instead, e.g. `--after=May.5th`.
400 [[commit-range-limiting]]
401 Limiting by Commit Ranges
402 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
404 Alternatively, commits can be limited to a specific range, such as "all
405 commits between 'tag-1.0' and 'tag-2.0'". For example:
407 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
408 $ tig log tag-1.0..tag-2.0
409 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
411 This way of commit limiting makes it trivial to only browse the commits which
412 haven't been pushed to a remote branch. Assuming 'origin' is your upstream
413 remote branch, using:
415 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
416 $ tig log origin..HEAD
417 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
419 will list what will be pushed to the remote branch. Optionally, the ending
420 'HEAD' can be left out since it is implied.
422 [[reachability-limiting]]
423 Limiting by Reachability
424 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
426 Git interprets the range specifier "tag-1.0..tag-2.0" as "all commits
427 reachable from 'tag-2.0' but not from 'tag-1.0'". Where reachability refers
428 to what commits are ancestors (or part of the history) of the branch or tagged
429 revision in question.
431 If you prefer to specify which commit to preview in this way use the
434 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
435 $ tig log tag-2.0 ^tag-1.0
436 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
438 You can think of '^' as a negation operator. Using this alternate syntax, it
439 is possible to further prune commits by specifying multiple branch cut offs.
442 Combining Revisions Specification
443 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
445 Revisions options can to some degree be combined, which makes it possible to
446 say "show at most 20 commits from within the last month that changed files
447 under the Documentation/ directory."
449 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
450 $ tig -- --since=1.month -n20 -- Documentation/
451 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
454 Examining All Repository References
455 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
457 In some cases, it can be useful to query changes across all references in a
458 repository. An example is to ask "did any line of development in this
459 repository change a particular file within the last week". This can be
462 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
463 $ tig -- --all --since=1.week -- Makefile
464 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
472 Copyright (c) 2006-2007 Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>
474 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
475 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
476 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
477 (at your option) any later version.
480 References and Related Tools
481 ----------------------------
494 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/[git],
495 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/cogito/docs/[Cogito]
497 Other git repository browsers: