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[]
16 endif::backend-docbook[]
18 [[calling-conventions]]
26 If stdin is a pipe, any log or diff options will be ignored and the pager view
27 will be opened loading data from stdin. The pager mode can be used for
28 colorizing output from various git commands.
30 Example on how to colorize the output of git-show(1):
32 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
34 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
40 All git command options specified on the command line will be passed to the
41 given command and all will be shell quoted before they are passed to the
44 NOTE: If you specify options for the main view, you should not use the
45 `--pretty` option as this option will be set automatically to the format
46 expected by the main view.
48 Example on how to open the log view and show both author and committer
51 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
52 $ tig log --pretty=fuller
53 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
55 See the <<refspec, "Specifying revisions">> section below for an introduction
56 to revision options supported by the git commands. For details on specific git
57 command options, refer to the man page of the command in question.
63 Several options related to the interface with git can be configured via
70 Commits that are referenced by tags and branch heads will be marked by the
71 reference name surrounded by '[' and ']':
73 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
74 2006-03-26 19:42 Petr Baudis | [cogito-0.17.1] Cogito 0.17.1
75 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
77 If you want to filter out certain directories under `.git/refs/`, say `tmp`
78 you can do it by setting the following variable:
80 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
81 $ TIG_LS_REMOTE="git ls-remote . | sed /\/tmp\//d" tig
82 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
84 Or set the variable permanently in your environment.
87 Set command for retrieving all repository references. The command
88 should output data in the same format as git-ls-remote(1).
94 It is possible to alter which commands are used for the different views. If
95 for example you prefer commits in the main view to be sorted by date and only
96 show 500 commits, use:
98 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
99 $ TIG_MAIN_CMD="git log --date-order -n500 --pretty=raw %s" tig
100 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
102 Or set the variable permanently in your environment.
104 Notice, how `%s` is used to specify the commit reference. There can be a
105 maximum of 5 `%s` ref specifications.
108 The command used for the diff view. By default, git show is used
112 The command used for the log view. If you prefer to have both
113 author and committer shown in the log view be sure to pass
114 `--pretty=fuller` to git log.
117 The command used for the main view. Note, you must always specify
118 the option: `--pretty=raw` since the main view parser expects to
125 The display consists of a status window on the last line of the screen and one
126 or more views. The default is to only show one view at the time but it is
127 possible to split both the main and log view to also show the commit diff.
129 If you are in the log view and press 'Enter' when the current line is a commit
132 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
133 commit 4d55caff4cc89335192f3e566004b4ceef572521
134 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
136 You will split the view so that the log view is displayed in the top window
137 and the diff view in the bottom window. You can switch between the two views
138 by pressing 'Tab'. To maximize the log view again, simply press 'l'.
141 Current Head and Commit ID
142 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
144 The viewer keeps track of both what head and commit ID you are currently
145 viewing. The commit ID will follow the cursor line and change everytime time
146 you highlight a different commit. Whenever you reopen the diff view it will be
147 reloaded, if the commit ID changed.
149 The head ID is used when opening the main and log view to indicate from what
150 revision to show history.
156 Various 'views' of a repository is presented. Each view is based on output
157 from an external command, most often 'git log', 'git diff', or 'git show'.
160 Is the default view, and it shows a one line summary of each commit
161 in the chosen list of revisions. The summary includes commit date,
162 author, and the first line of the log message. Additionally, any
163 repository references, such as tags, will be shown.
166 Presents a more rich view of the revision log showing the whole log
167 message and the diffstat.
170 Shows either the diff of the current working tree, that is, what
171 has changed since the last commit, or the commit diff complete
172 with log message, diffstat and diff.
175 Is used for displaying both input from stdin and output from git
176 commands entered in the internal prompt.
179 Displays key binding quick reference.
185 Each view has a title window which shows the name of the view, current commit
186 ID if available, and where the view is positioned:
188 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
189 [main] c622eefaa485995320bc743431bae0d497b1d875 - commit 1 of 61 (1%)
190 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
192 By default, the title of the current view is highlighted using bold font. For
193 long loading views (taking over 3 seconds) the time since loading started will
196 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
197 [main] 77d9e40fbcea3238015aea403e06f61542df9a31 - commit 1 of 779 (0%) 5s
198 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
203 Below the default key bindings are shown.
215 Switch to pager view.
219 [[view-manipulation]]
223 Close view, if multiple views are open it will jump back to the
224 previous view in the view stack. If it is the last open view it
225 will quit. Use 'Q' to quit all views at once.
227 This key is "context sensitive" depending on what view you are
228 currently in. When in log view on a commit line or in the main
229 view, split the view and show the commit diff. In the diff view
230 pressing Enter will simply scroll the view one line down.
234 This key is "context sensitive" and will move the cursor one
235 line up. However, uf you opened a diff view from the main view
236 (split- or full-screen) it will change the cursor to point to
237 the previous commit in the main view and update the diff view
240 Similar to 'Up' but will move down.
246 Move cursor one line up.
248 Move cursor one line down.
252 Move cursor one page up.
255 Move cursor one page down.
265 Scroll view one line up.
267 Scroll view one line down.
269 Scroll view one page up.
271 Scroll view one page down.
281 Stop all background loading. This can be useful if you use
282 tig in a repository with a long history without limiting
287 Toggle line numbers on/off.
289 Toggle revision graph visualization on/off.
291 Open prompt. This allows you to specify what git command
297 Revision Specification
298 ----------------------
300 This section describes various ways to specify what revisions to display or
301 otherwise limit the view to. Tig does not itself parse the described
302 revision options so refer to the relevant git man pages for futher
303 information. Relevant man pages besides git-log(1) are git-diff(1) and
306 You can tune the interaction with git by making use of the options explained
307 in this section. For example, by configuring the environment variables
308 described in the <<history-commands, "History commands">> section.
314 If you are interested only in those revisions that made changes to a specific
315 file (or even several files) list the files like this:
317 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
318 $ tig log Makefile README
319 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
321 To avoid ambiguity with repository references such as tag name, be sure to
322 separate file names from other git options using "\--". So if you have a file
323 named 'master' it will clash with the reference named 'master', and thus you
326 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
328 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
330 NOTE: For the main view, avoiding ambiguity will in some cases require you to
331 specify two "\--" options. The first will make tig stop option processing
332 and the latter will be passed to git log.
334 [[date-number-limiting]]
335 Limit by Date or Number
336 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
338 To speed up interaction with git, you can limit the amount of commits to show
339 both for the log and main view. Either limit by date using e.g.
340 `--since=1.month` or limit by the number of commits using `-n400`.
342 If you are only interested in changed that happened between two dates you can
345 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
346 $ tig -- --after="May 5th" --before="2006-05-16 15:44"
347 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
349 NOTE: If you want to avoid having to quote dates containing spaces you can use
350 "." instead, e.g. `--after=May.5th`.
352 [[commit-range-limiting]]
353 Limiting by Commit Ranges
354 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
356 Alternatively, commits can be limited to a specific range, such as "all
357 commits between 'tag-1.0' and 'tag-2.0'". For example:
359 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
360 $ tig log tag-1.0..tag-2.0
361 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
363 This way of commit limiting makes it trivial to only browse the commits which
364 haven't been pushed to a remote branch. Assuming 'origin' is your upstream
365 remote branch, using:
367 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
368 $ tig log origin..HEAD
369 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
371 will list what will be pushed to the remote branch. Optionally, the ending
372 'HEAD' can be left out since it is implied.
374 [[reachability-limiting]]
375 Limiting by Reachability
376 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
378 Git interprets the range specifier "tag-1.0..tag-2.0" as "all commits
379 reachable from 'tag-2.0' but not from 'tag-1.0'". Where reachability refers
380 to what commits are ancestors (or part of the history) of the branch or tagged
381 revision in question.
383 If you prefer to specify which commit to preview in this way use the
386 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
387 $ tig log tag-2.0 ^tag-1.0
388 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
390 You can think of '^' as a negation operator. Using this alternate syntax, it
391 is possible to further prune commits by specifying multiple branch cut offs.
394 Combining Revisions Specification
395 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
397 Revisions options can to some degree be combined, which makes it possible to
398 say "show at most 20 commits from within the last month that changed files
399 under the Documentation/ directory."
401 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
402 $ tig -- --since=1.month -n20 -- Documentation/
403 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
406 Examining All Repository References
407 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
409 In some cases, it can be useful to query changes across all references in a
410 repository. An example is to ask "did any line of development in this
411 repository change a particular file within the last week". This can be
414 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
415 $ tig -- --all --since=1.week -- Makefile
416 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
424 Copyright (c) 2006 Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>
426 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
427 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
428 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
429 (at your option) any later version.
432 References and Related Tools
433 ----------------------------
446 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/[git],
447 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/cogito/docs/[Cogito]
449 Other git repository browsers: