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65d9fb48 JS |
1 | git-notes(1) |
2 | ============ | |
3 | ||
4 | NAME | |
5 | ---- | |
1a3eb9a0 | 6 | git-notes - Add or inspect object notes |
65d9fb48 JS |
7 | |
8 | SYNOPSIS | |
9 | -------- | |
10 | [verse] | |
e397421a | 11 | 'git notes' [list [<object>]] |
d73a5b93 | 12 | 'git notes' add [-f] [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] |
160baa0d | 13 | 'git notes' copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> <to-object> ) |
d73a5b93 JH |
14 | 'git notes' append [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] |
15 | 'git notes' edit [--allow-empty] [<object>] | |
e397421a | 16 | 'git notes' show [<object>] |
e703d711 | 17 | 'git notes' merge [-v | -q] [-s <strategy> ] <notes-ref> |
6abb3655 JH |
18 | 'git notes' merge --commit [-v | -q] |
19 | 'git notes' merge --abort [-v | -q] | |
46538012 | 20 | 'git notes' remove [--ignore-missing] [--stdin] [<object>...] |
a9f2adff | 21 | 'git notes' prune [-n | -v] |
618cd757 | 22 | 'git notes' get-ref |
e397421a | 23 | |
65d9fb48 JS |
24 | |
25 | DESCRIPTION | |
26 | ----------- | |
1a3eb9a0 JN |
27 | Adds, removes, or reads notes attached to objects, without touching |
28 | the objects themselves. | |
65d9fb48 | 29 | |
00979710 JN |
30 | By default, notes are saved to and read from `refs/notes/commits`, but |
31 | this default can be overridden. See the OPTIONS, CONFIGURATION, and | |
32 | ENVIRONMENT sections below. If this ref does not exist, it will be | |
33 | quietly created when it is first needed to store a note. | |
34 | ||
1a3eb9a0 JN |
35 | A typical use of notes is to supplement a commit message without |
36 | changing the commit itself. Notes can be shown by 'git log' along with | |
37 | the original commit message. To distinguish these notes from the | |
7d541174 | 38 | message stored in the commit object, the notes are indented like the |
894a9d33 | 39 | message, after an unindented line saying "Notes (<refname>):" (or |
9eb3f816 | 40 | "Notes:" for `refs/notes/commits`). |
7d541174 | 41 | |
e39b307d PO |
42 | Notes can also be added to patches prepared with `git format-patch` by |
43 | using the `--notes` option. Such notes are added as a patch commentary | |
44 | after a three dash separator line. | |
45 | ||
66c4c32d JN |
46 | To change which notes are shown by 'git log', see the |
47 | "notes.displayRef" configuration in linkgit:git-log[1]. | |
65d9fb48 | 48 | |
c5ce1836 JN |
49 | See the "notes.rewrite.<command>" configuration for a way to carry |
50 | notes across commands that rewrite commits. | |
65d9fb48 JS |
51 | |
52 | ||
53 | SUBCOMMANDS | |
54 | ----------- | |
55 | ||
e397421a JH |
56 | list:: |
57 | List the notes object for a given object. If no object is | |
58 | given, show a list of all note objects and the objects they | |
59 | annotate (in the format "<note object> <annotated object>"). | |
60 | This is the default subcommand if no subcommand is given. | |
61 | ||
7aa4754e JH |
62 | add:: |
63 | Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). Abort if the | |
84a7e35e JH |
64 | object already has notes (use `-f` to overwrite existing notes). |
65 | However, if you're using `add` interactively (using an editor | |
66 | to supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting - | |
67 | the existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the `edit` | |
68 | subcommand). | |
7aa4754e | 69 | |
e73bbd96 JH |
70 | copy:: |
71 | Copy the notes for the first object onto the second object. | |
72 | Abort if the second object already has notes, or if the first | |
48716a23 | 73 | object has none (use -f to overwrite existing notes to the |
e73bbd96 JH |
74 | second object). This subcommand is equivalent to: |
75 | `git notes add [-f] -C $(git notes list <from-object>) <to-object>` | |
160baa0d | 76 | + |
6cf378f0 | 77 | In `--stdin` mode, take lines in the format |
160baa0d TR |
78 | + |
79 | ---------- | |
80 | <from-object> SP <to-object> [ SP <rest> ] LF | |
81 | ---------- | |
82 | + | |
83 | on standard input, and copy the notes from each <from-object> to its | |
84 | corresponding <to-object>. (The optional `<rest>` is ignored so that | |
85 | the command can read the input given to the `post-rewrite` hook.) | |
e73bbd96 | 86 | |
2347fae5 JH |
87 | append:: |
88 | Append to the notes of an existing object (defaults to HEAD). | |
89 | Creates a new notes object if needed. | |
90 | ||
65d9fb48 | 91 | edit:: |
7d541174 | 92 | Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). |
65d9fb48 JS |
93 | |
94 | show:: | |
7d541174 | 95 | Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). |
65d9fb48 | 96 | |
00f03061 JH |
97 | merge:: |
98 | Merge the given notes ref into the current notes ref. | |
99 | This will try to merge the changes made by the given | |
100 | notes ref (called "remote") since the merge-base (if | |
101 | any) into the current notes ref (called "local"). | |
102 | + | |
103 | If conflicts arise and a strategy for automatically resolving | |
104 | conflicting notes (see the -s/--strategy option) is not given, | |
809f38c8 JH |
105 | the "manual" resolver is used. This resolver checks out the |
106 | conflicting notes in a special worktree (`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), | |
107 | and instructs the user to manually resolve the conflicts there. | |
6abb3655 JH |
108 | When done, the user can either finalize the merge with |
109 | 'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with | |
110 | 'git notes merge --abort'. | |
00f03061 | 111 | |
92b3385f | 112 | remove:: |
c3ab1a8e JH |
113 | Remove the notes for given objects (defaults to HEAD). When |
114 | giving zero or one object from the command line, this is | |
115 | equivalent to specifying an empty note message to | |
92b3385f JH |
116 | the `edit` subcommand. |
117 | ||
d6576e1f JH |
118 | prune:: |
119 | Remove all notes for non-existing/unreachable objects. | |
65d9fb48 | 120 | |
618cd757 JH |
121 | get-ref:: |
122 | Print the current notes ref. This provides an easy way to | |
123 | retrieve the current notes ref (e.g. from scripts). | |
124 | ||
d9246d43 JH |
125 | OPTIONS |
126 | ------- | |
7aa4754e JH |
127 | -f:: |
128 | --force:: | |
129 | When adding notes to an object that already has notes, | |
130 | overwrite the existing notes (instead of aborting). | |
131 | ||
d9246d43 | 132 | -m <msg>:: |
ba20f15e | 133 | --message=<msg>:: |
d9246d43 | 134 | Use the given note message (instead of prompting). |
cd067d3b JH |
135 | If multiple `-m` options are given, their values |
136 | are concatenated as separate paragraphs. | |
8d6888ec JN |
137 | Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a |
138 | single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. | |
d9246d43 JH |
139 | |
140 | -F <file>:: | |
ba20f15e | 141 | --file=<file>:: |
d9246d43 JH |
142 | Take the note message from the given file. Use '-' to |
143 | read the note message from the standard input. | |
8d6888ec JN |
144 | Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a |
145 | single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. | |
d9246d43 | 146 | |
0691cff7 JH |
147 | -C <object>:: |
148 | --reuse-message=<object>:: | |
11432bb4 MG |
149 | Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the |
150 | note message. (Use `git notes copy <object>` instead to | |
151 | copy notes between objects.) | |
0691cff7 JH |
152 | |
153 | -c <object>:: | |
154 | --reedit-message=<object>:: | |
155 | Like '-C', but with '-c' the editor is invoked, so that | |
156 | the user can further edit the note message. | |
d9246d43 | 157 | |
d73a5b93 JH |
158 | --allow-empty:: |
159 | Allow an empty note object to be stored. The default behavior is | |
160 | to automatically remove empty notes. | |
161 | ||
dcf783a2 | 162 | --ref <ref>:: |
00979710 JN |
163 | Manipulate the notes tree in <ref>. This overrides |
164 | 'GIT_NOTES_REF' and the "core.notesRef" configuration. The ref | |
dcf783a2 TR |
165 | is taken to be in `refs/notes/` if it is not qualified. |
166 | ||
2d370d2f JH |
167 | --ignore-missing:: |
168 | Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an | |
169 | object that does not have notes attached to it. | |
170 | ||
46538012 JH |
171 | --stdin:: |
172 | Also read the object names to remove notes from from the standard | |
173 | input (there is no reason you cannot combine this with object | |
174 | names from the command line). | |
175 | ||
a9f2adff | 176 | -n:: |
e93487d2 | 177 | --dry-run:: |
a9f2adff MG |
178 | Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes |
179 | would be removed. | |
180 | ||
00f03061 JH |
181 | -s <strategy>:: |
182 | --strategy=<strategy>:: | |
183 | When merging notes, resolve notes conflicts using the given | |
184 | strategy. The following strategies are recognized: "manual" | |
a6a09095 | 185 | (default), "ours", "theirs", "union" and "cat_sort_uniq". |
00f03061 JH |
186 | See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section below for more |
187 | information on each notes merge strategy. | |
188 | ||
6abb3655 JH |
189 | --commit:: |
190 | Finalize an in-progress 'git notes merge'. Use this option | |
191 | when you have resolved the conflicts that 'git notes merge' | |
192 | stored in .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. This amends the partial | |
193 | merge commit created by 'git notes merge' (stored in | |
194 | .git/NOTES_MERGE_PARTIAL) by adding the notes in | |
195 | .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. The notes ref stored in the | |
196 | .git/NOTES_MERGE_REF symref is updated to the resulting commit. | |
197 | ||
198 | --abort:: | |
199 | Abort/reset a in-progress 'git notes merge', i.e. a notes merge | |
200 | with conflicts. This simply removes all files related to the | |
201 | notes merge. | |
202 | ||
00f03061 JH |
203 | -q:: |
204 | --quiet:: | |
205 | When merging notes, operate quietly. | |
206 | ||
a9f2adff | 207 | -v:: |
e93487d2 | 208 | --verbose:: |
00f03061 JH |
209 | When merging notes, be more verbose. |
210 | When pruning notes, report all object names whose notes are | |
211 | removed. | |
a9f2adff | 212 | |
66d68199 | 213 | |
9eb3f816 JN |
214 | DISCUSSION |
215 | ---------- | |
216 | ||
217 | Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object | |
218 | (usually information to supplement a commit's message). These blobs | |
219 | are taken from notes refs. A notes ref is usually a branch which | |
220 | contains "files" whose paths are the object names for the objects | |
221 | they describe, with some directory separators included for performance | |
222 | reasons footnote:[Permitted pathnames have the form | |
223 | 'ab'`/`'cd'`/`'ef'`/`'...'`/`'abcdef...': a sequence of directory | |
224 | names of two hexadecimal digits each followed by a filename with the | |
225 | rest of the object ID.]. | |
66d68199 TR |
226 | |
227 | Every notes change creates a new commit at the specified notes ref. | |
228 | You can therefore inspect the history of the notes by invoking, e.g., | |
9eb3f816 JN |
229 | `git log -p notes/commits`. Currently the commit message only records |
230 | which operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is | |
231 | determined according to the usual rules (see linkgit:git-commit[1]). | |
232 | These details may change in the future. | |
233 | ||
234 | It is also permitted for a notes ref to point directly to a tree | |
235 | object, in which case the history of the notes can be read with | |
236 | `git log -p -g <refname>`. | |
66d68199 TR |
237 | |
238 | ||
00f03061 JH |
239 | NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES |
240 | ---------------------- | |
241 | ||
809f38c8 JH |
242 | The default notes merge strategy is "manual", which checks out |
243 | conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts | |
244 | (`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), and instructs the user to resolve the | |
245 | conflicts in that work tree. | |
6abb3655 JH |
246 | When done, the user can either finalize the merge with |
247 | 'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with | |
248 | 'git notes merge --abort'. | |
00f03061 JH |
249 | |
250 | "ours" automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local | |
251 | version (i.e. the current notes ref). | |
252 | ||
253 | "theirs" automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote | |
254 | version (i.e. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes | |
255 | ref). | |
256 | ||
257 | "union" automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the | |
258 | local and remote versions. | |
259 | ||
a6a09095 JH |
260 | "cat_sort_uniq" is similar to "union", but in addition to concatenating |
261 | the local and remote versions, this strategy also sorts the resulting | |
262 | lines, and removes duplicate lines from the result. This is equivalent | |
263 | to applying the "cat | sort | uniq" shell pipeline to the local and | |
264 | remote versions. This strategy is useful if the notes follow a line-based | |
265 | format where one wants to avoid duplicated lines in the merge result. | |
266 | Note that if either the local or remote version contain duplicate lines | |
267 | prior to the merge, these will also be removed by this notes merge | |
268 | strategy. | |
269 | ||
00f03061 | 270 | |
8d6888ec JN |
271 | EXAMPLES |
272 | -------- | |
273 | ||
274 | You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not | |
275 | available at the time a commit was written. | |
276 | ||
277 | ------------ | |
278 | $ git notes add -m 'Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>' 72a144e2 | |
279 | $ git show -s 72a144e | |
280 | [...] | |
281 | Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> | |
282 | ||
283 | Notes: | |
284 | Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org> | |
285 | ------------ | |
286 | ||
287 | In principle, a note is a regular Git blob, and any kind of | |
288 | (non-)format is accepted. You can binary-safely create notes from | |
289 | arbitrary files using 'git hash-object': | |
290 | ||
291 | ------------ | |
292 | $ cc *.c | |
293 | $ blob=$(git hash-object -w a.out) | |
d73a5b93 | 294 | $ git notes --ref=built add --allow-empty -C "$blob" HEAD |
8d6888ec JN |
295 | ------------ |
296 | ||
11432bb4 MG |
297 | (You cannot simply use `git notes --ref=built add -F a.out HEAD` |
298 | because that is not binary-safe.) | |
8d6888ec JN |
299 | Of course, it doesn't make much sense to display non-text-format notes |
300 | with 'git log', so if you use such notes, you'll probably need to write | |
301 | some special-purpose tools to do something useful with them. | |
302 | ||
303 | ||
ed9098fd JN |
304 | CONFIGURATION |
305 | ------------- | |
306 | ||
307 | core.notesRef:: | |
00979710 JN |
308 | Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of |
309 | `refs/notes/commits`. Must be an unabbreviated ref name. | |
310 | This setting can be overridden through the environment and | |
311 | command line. | |
ed9098fd JN |
312 | |
313 | notes.displayRef:: | |
66c4c32d JN |
314 | Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in |
315 | addition to the default set by `core.notesRef` or | |
316 | 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit | |
317 | messages with the 'git log' family of commands. | |
318 | This setting can be overridden on the command line or by the | |
319 | 'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF' environment variable. | |
320 | See linkgit:git-log[1]. | |
ed9098fd JN |
321 | |
322 | notes.rewrite.<command>:: | |
323 | When rewriting commits with <command> (currently `amend` or | |
c5ce1836 JN |
324 | `rebase`), if this variable is `false`, git will not copy |
325 | notes from the original to the rewritten commit. Defaults to | |
326 | `true`. See also "`notes.rewriteRef`" below. | |
327 | + | |
328 | This setting can be overridden by the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' | |
329 | environment variable. | |
ed9098fd JN |
330 | |
331 | notes.rewriteMode:: | |
c5ce1836 JN |
332 | When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target |
333 | commit already has a note. Must be one of `overwrite`, | |
334 | `concatenate`, and `ignore`. Defaults to `concatenate`. | |
ed9098fd JN |
335 | + |
336 | This setting can be overridden with the `GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE` | |
337 | environment variable. | |
338 | ||
339 | notes.rewriteRef:: | |
340 | When copying notes during a rewrite, specifies the (fully | |
c5ce1836 JN |
341 | qualified) ref whose notes should be copied. May be a glob, |
342 | in which case notes in all matching refs will be copied. You | |
343 | may also specify this configuration several times. | |
ed9098fd JN |
344 | + |
345 | Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to | |
346 | enable note rewriting. | |
347 | + | |
c5ce1836 | 348 | Can be overridden with the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' environment variable. |
ed9098fd | 349 | |
00979710 JN |
350 | |
351 | ENVIRONMENT | |
352 | ----------- | |
353 | ||
354 | 'GIT_NOTES_REF':: | |
355 | Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of `refs/notes/commits`. | |
356 | This overrides the `core.notesRef` setting. | |
357 | ||
66c4c32d JN |
358 | 'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF':: |
359 | Colon-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs, | |
360 | in addition to the default from `core.notesRef` or | |
361 | 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit | |
362 | messages. | |
363 | This overrides the `notes.displayRef` setting. | |
364 | + | |
365 | A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob that | |
366 | does not match any refs is silently ignored. | |
367 | ||
c5ce1836 JN |
368 | 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE':: |
369 | When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target | |
370 | commit already has a note. | |
371 | Must be one of `overwrite`, `concatenate`, and `ignore`. | |
372 | This overrides the `core.rewriteMode` setting. | |
373 | ||
374 | 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF':: | |
375 | When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original | |
376 | to the rewritten commit. Must be a colon-delimited list of | |
377 | refs or globs. | |
378 | + | |
379 | If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends | |
380 | on the `notes.rewrite.<command>` and `notes.rewriteRef` settings. | |
381 | ||
65d9fb48 JS |
382 | GIT |
383 | --- | |
384 | Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite |