mdw@git.distorted.org.uk Git - tig/blob - manual.txt

   1 The tig Manual
   2 ==============
   3 Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>
   4
   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.
   9
  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.
  13
  14 ifndef::backend-docbook[]
  15 include::manual.toc[]
  16 endif::backend-docbook[]
  17
  18 [[calling-conventions]]
  19 Calling Conventions
  20 -------------------
  21
  22 [[pager-mode]]
  23 Pager Mode
  24 ~~~~~~~~~~
  25
  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.
  29
  30 Example on how to colorize the output of git-show(1):
  31
  32 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  33 $ git show | tig
  34 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  35
  36 [[cmd-options]]
  37 Git Command Options
  38 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  39
  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
  42 shell.
  43
  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.
  47
  48 Example on how to open the log view and show both author and committer
  49 information:
  50
  51 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  52 $ tig log --pretty=fuller
  53 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  54
  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.
  58
  59 [[env-variables]]
  60 Environment Variables
  61 ---------------------
  62
  63 Several options related to the interface with git can be configured via
  64 environment options.
  65
  66 [[repo-refs]]
  67 Repository References
  68 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  69
  70 Commits that are referenced by tags and branch heads will be marked by the
  71 reference name surrounded by '[' and ']':
  72
  73 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  74 2006-03-26 19:42 Petr Baudis         | [cogito-0.17.1] Cogito 0.17.1
  75 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  76
  77 If you want to filter out certain directories under `.git/refs/`, say `tmp`
  78 you can do it by setting the following variable:
  79
  80 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  81 $ TIG_LS_REMOTE="git ls-remote . | sed /\/tmp\//d" tig
  82 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  83
  84 Or set the variable permanently in your environment.
  85
  86 TIG_LS_REMOTE::
  87         Set command for retrieving all repository references. The command
  88         should output data in the same format as git-ls-remote(1).
  89
  90 [[history-commands]]
  91 History Commands
  92 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  93
  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:
  97
  98 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  99 $ TIG_MAIN_CMD="git log --date-order -n500 --pretty=raw %s" tig
 100 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 101
 102 Or set the variable permanently in your environment.
 103
 104 Notice, how `%s` is used to specify the commit reference. There can be a
 105 maximum of 5 `%s` ref specifications.
 106
 107 TIG_DIFF_CMD::
 108         The command used for the diff view. By default, git show is used
 109         as a backend.
 110
 111 TIG_LOG_CMD::
 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.
 115
 116 TIG_MAIN_CMD::
 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
 119         read that format.
 120
 121 [[viewer]]
 122 The Viewer
 123 ----------
 124
 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.
 128
 129 If you are in the log view and press 'Enter' when the current line is a commit
 130 line, such as:
 131
 132 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 133 commit 4d55caff4cc89335192f3e566004b4ceef572521
 134 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 135
 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'.
 139
 140 [[commit-id]]
 141 Current Head and Commit ID
 142 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 143
 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.
 148
 149 The head ID is used when opening the main and log view to indicate from what
 150 revision to show history.
 151
 152 [[views]]
 153 Views
 154 ~~~~~
 155
 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'.
 158
 159 The main view::
 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.
 164
 165 The log view::
 166         Presents a more rich view of the revision log showing the whole log
 167         message and the diffstat.
 168
 169 The diff view::
 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.
 173
 174 The pager view::
 175         Is used for displaying both input from stdin and output from git
 176         commands entered in the internal prompt.
 177
 178 The help view::
 179         Displays key binding quick reference.
 180
 181 [[title-window]]
 182 Title Windows
 183 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 184
 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:
 187
 188 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 189 [main] c622eefaa485995320bc743431bae0d497b1d875 - commit 1 of 61 (1%)
 190 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 191
 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
 194 be appended:
 195
 196 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 197 [main] 77d9e40fbcea3238015aea403e06f61542df9a31 - commit 1 of 779 (0%) 5s
 198 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 199
 200 [[keys]]
 201 Keys
 202 ----
 203 Below the default key bindings are shown.
 204
 205 [[view-switching]]
 206 View Switching
 207 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 208 m::
 209         Switch to main view.
 210 d::
 211         Switch to diff view.
 212 l::
 213         Switch to log view.
 214 p::
 215         Switch to pager view.
 216 h, ?::
 217         Show man page.
 218
 219 [[view-manipulation]]
 220 View Manipulation
 221 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 222 q::
 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.
 226 Enter::
 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.
 231 Tab::
 232         Switch to next view.
 233 Up::
 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
 238         to display it.
 239 Down::
 240         Similar to 'Up' but will move down.
 241
 242 [[cursor-nav]]
 243 Cursor Navigation
 244 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 245 j::
 246         Move cursor one line up.
 247 k::
 248         Move cursor one line down.
 249 PgUp::
 250 b::
 251 -::
 252         Move cursor one page up.
 253 PgDown::
 254 Space::
 255         Move cursor one page down.
 256 Home::
 257         Jump to first line.
 258 End::
 259         Jump to last line.
 260
 261 [[view-scrolling]]
 262 Scrolling
 263 ~~~~~~~~~
 264 Insert::
 265         Scroll view one line up.
 266 Delete::
 267         Scroll view one line down.
 268 w::
 269         Scroll view one page up.
 270 s::
 271         Scroll view one page down.
 272
 273 [[misc-keys]]
 274 Misc
 275 ~~~~
 276 Q::
 277         Quit.
 278 r::
 279         Redraw screen.
 280 z::
 281         Stop all background loading. This can be useful if you use
 282         tig in a repository with a long history without limiting
 283         the revision log.
 284 v::
 285         Show version.
 286 n::
 287         Toggle line numbers on/off.
 288 g::
 289         Toggle revision graph visualization on/off.
 290 ':'::
 291         Open prompt. This allows you to specify what git command
 292         to run. Example:
 293
 294         :log -p
 295
 296 [[refspec]]
 297 Revision Specification
 298 ----------------------
 299
 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
 304 git-rev-list(1).
 305
 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.
 309
 310 [[path-limiting]]
 311 Limit by Path Name
 312 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 313
 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:
 316
 317 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 318 $ tig log Makefile README
 319 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 320
 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
 324 will have to use:
 325
 326 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 327 $ tig log -- master
 328 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 329
 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.
 333
 334 [[date-number-limiting]]
 335 Limit by Date or Number
 336 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 337
 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`.
 341
 342 If you are only interested in changed that happened between two dates you can
 343 use:
 344
 345 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 346 $ tig -- --after="May 5th" --before="2006-05-16 15:44"
 347 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 348
 349 NOTE: If you want to avoid having to quote dates containing spaces you can use
 350 "." instead, e.g. `--after=May.5th`.
 351
 352 [[commit-range-limiting]]
 353 Limiting by Commit Ranges
 354 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 355
 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:
 358
 359 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 360 $ tig log tag-1.0..tag-2.0
 361 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 362
 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:
 366
 367 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 368 $ tig log origin..HEAD
 369 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 370
 371 will list what will be pushed to the remote branch. Optionally, the ending
 372 'HEAD' can be left out since it is implied.
 373
 374 [[reachability-limiting]]
 375 Limiting by Reachability
 376 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 377
 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.
 382
 383 If you prefer to specify which commit to preview in this way use the
 384 following:
 385
 386 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 387 $ tig log tag-2.0 ^tag-1.0
 388 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 389
 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.
 392
 393 [[refspec-combi]]
 394 Combining Revisions Specification
 395 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 396
 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."
 400
 401 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 402 $ tig -- --since=1.month -n20 -- Documentation/
 403 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 404
 405 [[refspec-all]]
 406 Examining All Repository References
 407 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 408
 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
 412 accomplished using:
 413
 414 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 415 $ tig -- --all --since=1.week -- Makefile
 416 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 417
 418 include::BUGS[]
 419
 420 [[copy-right]]
 421 Copyright
 422 ---------
 423
 424 Copyright (c) 2006 Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>
 425
 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.
 430
 431 [[references]]
 432 References and Related Tools
 433 ----------------------------
 434
 435 Manpages:
 436
 437  - gitlink:tig[1]
 438  - gitlink:tigrc[5]
 439
 440 Online resources:
 441
 442 include::SITES[]
 443
 444 Git porcelains:
 445
 446  - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/[git],
 447  - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/cogito/docs/[Cogito]
 448
 449 Other git repository browsers:
 450
 451  - gitk(1)
 452  - qgit(1)
 453  - gitview(1)