| '\" t |
| .\" Title: gitcli |
| .\" Author: [FIXME: author] [see http://www.docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/author] |
| .\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets vsnapshot <http://docbook.sf.net/> |
| .\" Date: 03/07/2022 |
| .\" Manual: Git Manual |
| .\" Source: Git 2.35.1.415.gc2162907e9 |
| .\" Language: English |
| .\" |
| .TH "GITCLI" "7" "03/07/2022" "Git 2\&.35\&.1\&.415\&.gc21629" "Git Manual" |
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| .\" * Define some portability stuff |
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| .\" http://bugs.debian.org/507673 |
| .\" http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2009-02/msg00013.html |
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| .\" * set default formatting |
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| .nh |
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| .\" * MAIN CONTENT STARTS HERE * |
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| .SH "NAME" |
| gitcli \- Git command\-line interface and conventions |
| .SH "SYNOPSIS" |
| .sp |
| gitcli |
| .SH "DESCRIPTION" |
| .sp |
| This manual describes the convention used throughout Git CLI\&. |
| .sp |
| Many commands take revisions (most often "commits", but sometimes "tree\-ish", depending on the context and command) and paths as their arguments\&. Here are the rules: |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Options come first and then args\&. A subcommand may take dashed options (which may take their own arguments, e\&.g\&. "\-\-max\-parents 2") and arguments\&. You SHOULD give dashed options first and then arguments\&. Some commands may accept dashed options after you have already gave non\-option arguments (which may make the command ambiguous), but you should not rely on it (because eventually we may find a way to fix these ambiguity by enforcing the "options then args" rule)\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Revisions come first and then paths\&. E\&.g\&. in |
| \fBgit diff v1\&.0 v2\&.0 arch/x86 include/asm\-x86\fR, |
| \fBv1\&.0\fR |
| and |
| \fBv2\&.0\fR |
| are revisions and |
| \fBarch/x86\fR |
| and |
| \fBinclude/asm\-x86\fR |
| are paths\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| When an argument can be misunderstood as either a revision or a path, they can be disambiguated by placing |
| \fB\-\-\fR |
| between them\&. E\&.g\&. |
| \fBgit diff \-\- HEAD\fR |
| is, "I have a file called HEAD in my work tree\&. Please show changes between the version I staged in the index and what I have in the work tree for that file", not "show difference between the HEAD commit and the work tree as a whole"\&. You can say |
| \fBgit diff HEAD \-\-\fR |
| to ask for the latter\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Without disambiguating |
| \fB\-\-\fR, Git makes a reasonable guess, but errors out and asking you to disambiguate when ambiguous\&. E\&.g\&. if you have a file called HEAD in your work tree, |
| \fBgit diff HEAD\fR |
| is ambiguous, and you have to say either |
| \fBgit diff HEAD \-\-\fR |
| or |
| \fBgit diff \-\- HEAD\fR |
| to disambiguate\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Because |
| \fB\-\-\fR |
| disambiguates revisions and paths in some commands, it cannot be used for those commands to separate options and revisions\&. You can use |
| \fB\-\-end\-of\-options\fR |
| for this (it also works for commands that do not distinguish between revisions in paths, in which case it is simply an alias for |
| \fB\-\-\fR)\&. |
| .sp |
| When writing a script that is expected to handle random user\-input, it is a good practice to make it explicit which arguments are which by placing disambiguating |
| \fB\-\-\fR |
| at appropriate places\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Many commands allow wildcards in paths, but you need to protect them from getting globbed by the shell\&. These two mean different things: |
| .sp |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RS 4 |
| .\} |
| .nf |
| $ git restore *\&.c |
| $ git restore \e*\&.c |
| .fi |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RE |
| .\} |
| .sp |
| The former lets your shell expand the fileglob, and you are asking the dot\-C files in your working tree to be overwritten with the version in the index\&. The latter passes the |
| \fB*\&.c\fR |
| to Git, and you are asking the paths in the index that match the pattern to be checked out to your working tree\&. After running |
| \fBgit add hello\&.c; rm hello\&.c\fR, you will |
| \fInot\fR |
| see |
| \fBhello\&.c\fR |
| in your working tree with the former, but with the latter you will\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Just as the filesystem |
| \fI\&.\fR |
| (period) refers to the current directory, using a |
| \fI\&.\fR |
| as a repository name in Git (a dot\-repository) is a relative path and means your current repository\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| Here are the rules regarding the "flags" that you should follow when you are scripting Git: |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| It\(cqs preferred to use the non\-dashed form of Git commands, which means that you should prefer |
| \fBgit foo\fR |
| to |
| \fBgit\-foo\fR\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Splitting short options to separate words (prefer |
| \fBgit foo \-a \-b\fR |
| to |
| \fBgit foo \-ab\fR, the latter may not even work)\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| When a command\-line option takes an argument, use the |
| \fIstuck\fR |
| form\&. In other words, write |
| \fBgit foo \-oArg\fR |
| instead of |
| \fBgit foo \-o Arg\fR |
| for short options, and |
| \fBgit foo \-\-long\-opt=Arg\fR |
| instead of |
| \fBgit foo \-\-long\-opt Arg\fR |
| for long options\&. An option that takes optional option\-argument must be written in the |
| \fIstuck\fR |
| form\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| When you give a revision parameter to a command, make sure the parameter is not ambiguous with a name of a file in the work tree\&. E\&.g\&. do not write |
| \fBgit log \-1 HEAD\fR |
| but write |
| \fBgit log \-1 HEAD \-\-\fR; the former will not work if you happen to have a file called |
| \fBHEAD\fR |
| in the work tree\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| Many commands allow a long option |
| \fB\-\-option\fR |
| to be abbreviated only to their unique prefix (e\&.g\&. if there is no other option whose name begins with |
| \fBopt\fR, you may be able to spell |
| \fB\-\-opt\fR |
| to invoke the |
| \fB\-\-option\fR |
| flag), but you should fully spell them out when writing your scripts; later versions of Git may introduce a new option whose name shares the same prefix, e\&.g\&. |
| \fB\-\-optimize\fR, to make a short prefix that used to be unique no longer unique\&. |
| .RE |
| .SH "ENHANCED OPTION PARSER" |
| .sp |
| From the Git 1\&.5\&.4 series and further, many Git commands (not all of them at the time of the writing though) come with an enhanced option parser\&. |
| .sp |
| Here is a list of the facilities provided by this option parser\&. |
| .SS "Magic Options" |
| .sp |
| Commands which have the enhanced option parser activated all understand a couple of magic command\-line options: |
| .PP |
| \-h |
| .RS 4 |
| gives a pretty printed usage of the command\&. |
| .sp |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RS 4 |
| .\} |
| .nf |
| $ git describe \-h |
| usage: git describe [<options>] <commit\-ish>* |
| or: git describe [<options>] \-\-dirty |
| |
| \-\-contains find the tag that comes after the commit |
| \-\-debug debug search strategy on stderr |
| \-\-all use any ref |
| \-\-tags use any tag, even unannotated |
| \-\-long always use long format |
| \-\-abbrev[=<n>] use <n> digits to display SHA\-1s |
| .fi |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RE |
| .\} |
| .sp |
| Note that some subcommand (e\&.g\&. |
| \fBgit grep\fR) may behave differently when there are things on the command line other than |
| \fB\-h\fR, but |
| \fBgit subcmd \-h\fR |
| without anything else on the command line is meant to consistently give the usage\&. |
| .RE |
| .PP |
| \-\-help\-all |
| .RS 4 |
| Some Git commands take options that are only used for plumbing or that are deprecated, and such options are hidden from the default usage\&. This option gives the full list of options\&. |
| .RE |
| .SS "Negating options" |
| .sp |
| Options with long option names can be negated by prefixing \fB\-\-no\-\fR\&. For example, \fBgit branch\fR has the option \fB\-\-track\fR which is \fIon\fR by default\&. You can use \fB\-\-no\-track\fR to override that behaviour\&. The same goes for \fB\-\-color\fR and \fB\-\-no\-color\fR\&. |
| .SS "Aggregating short options" |
| .sp |
| Commands that support the enhanced option parser allow you to aggregate short options\&. This means that you can for example use \fBgit rm \-rf\fR or \fBgit clean \-fdx\fR\&. |
| .SS "Abbreviating long options" |
| .sp |
| Commands that support the enhanced option parser accepts unique prefix of a long option as if it is fully spelled out, but use this with a caution\&. For example, \fBgit commit \-\-amen\fR behaves as if you typed \fBgit commit \-\-amend\fR, but that is true only until a later version of Git introduces another option that shares the same prefix, e\&.g\&. \fBgit commit \-\-amenity\fR option\&. |
| .SS "Separating argument from the option" |
| .sp |
| You can write the mandatory option parameter to an option as a separate word on the command line\&. That means that all the following uses work: |
| .sp |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RS 4 |
| .\} |
| .nf |
| $ git foo \-\-long\-opt=Arg |
| $ git foo \-\-long\-opt Arg |
| $ git foo \-oArg |
| $ git foo \-o Arg |
| .fi |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RE |
| .\} |
| .sp |
| .sp |
| However, this is \fBNOT\fR allowed for switches with an optional value, where the \fIstuck\fR form must be used: |
| .sp |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RS 4 |
| .\} |
| .nf |
| $ git describe \-\-abbrev HEAD # correct |
| $ git describe \-\-abbrev=10 HEAD # correct |
| $ git describe \-\-abbrev 10 HEAD # NOT WHAT YOU MEANT |
| .fi |
| .if n \{\ |
| .RE |
| .\} |
| .sp |
| .SH "NOTES ON FREQUENTLY CONFUSED OPTIONS" |
| .sp |
| Many commands that can work on files in the working tree and/or in the index can take \fB\-\-cached\fR and/or \fB\-\-index\fR options\&. Sometimes people incorrectly think that, because the index was originally called cache, these two are synonyms\&. They are \fBnot\fR \(em these two options mean very different things\&. |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| The |
| \fB\-\-cached\fR |
| option is used to ask a command that usually works on files in the working tree to |
| \fBonly\fR |
| work with the index\&. For example, |
| \fBgit grep\fR, when used without a commit to specify from which commit to look for strings in, usually works on files in the working tree, but with the |
| \fB\-\-cached\fR |
| option, it looks for strings in the index\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| The |
| \fB\-\-index\fR |
| option is used to ask a command that usually works on files in the working tree to |
| \fBalso\fR |
| affect the index\&. For example, |
| \fBgit stash apply\fR |
| usually merges changes recorded in a stash entry to the working tree, but with the |
| \fB\-\-index\fR |
| option, it also merges changes to the index as well\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| \fBgit apply\fR command can be used with \fB\-\-cached\fR and \fB\-\-index\fR (but not at the same time)\&. Usually the command only affects the files in the working tree, but with \fB\-\-index\fR, it patches both the files and their index entries, and with \fB\-\-cached\fR, it modifies only the index entries\&. |
| .sp |
| See also \m[blue]\fBhttps://lore\&.kernel\&.org/git/7v64clg5u9\&.fsf@assigned\-by\-dhcp\&.cox\&.net/\fR\m[] and \m[blue]\fBhttps://lore\&.kernel\&.org/git/7vy7ej9g38\&.fsf@gitster\&.siamese\&.dyndns\&.org/\fR\m[] for further information\&. |
| .sp |
| Some other commands that also work on files in the working tree and/or in the index can take \fB\-\-staged\fR and/or \fB\-\-worktree\fR\&. |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| \fB\-\-staged\fR |
| is exactly like |
| \fB\-\-cached\fR, which is used to ask a command to only work on the index, not the working tree\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| \fB\-\-worktree\fR |
| is the opposite, to ask a command to work on the working tree only, not the index\&. |
| .RE |
| .sp |
| .RS 4 |
| .ie n \{\ |
| \h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c |
| .\} |
| .el \{\ |
| .sp -1 |
| .IP \(bu 2.3 |
| .\} |
| The two options can be specified together to ask a command to work on both the index and the working tree\&. |
| .RE |
| .SH "GIT" |
| .sp |
| Part of the \fBgit\fR(1) suite |