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
127 The display consists of a status window on the last line of the screen and one
128 or more views. The default is to only show one view at the time but it is
129 possible to split both the main and log view to also show the commit diff.
131 If you are in the log view and press 'Enter' when the current line is a commit
134 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
135 commit 4d55caff4cc89335192f3e566004b4ceef572521
136 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
138 You will split the view so that the log view is displayed in the top window
139 and the diff view in the bottom window. You can switch between the two views
140 by pressing 'Tab'. To maximize the log view again, simply press 'l'.
143 Current Head and Commit ID
144 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
146 The viewer keeps track of both what head and commit ID you are currently
147 viewing. The commit ID will follow the cursor line and change everytime time
148 you highlight a different commit. Whenever you reopen the diff view it will be
149 reloaded, if the commit ID changed.
151 The head ID is used when opening the main and log view to indicate from what
152 revision to show history.
158 Various 'views' of a repository is presented. Each view is based on output
159 from an external command, most often 'git log', 'git diff', or 'git show'.
162 Is the default view, and it shows a one line summary of each commit
163 in the chosen list of revisions. The summary includes commit date,
164 author, and the first line of the log message. Additionally, any
165 repository references, such as tags, will be shown.
168 Presents a more rich view of the revision log showing the whole log
169 message and the diffstat.
172 Shows either the diff of the current working tree, that is, what
173 has changed since the last commit, or the commit diff complete
174 with log message, diffstat and diff.
177 Is used for displaying both input from stdin and output from git
178 commands entered in the internal prompt.
181 Displays key binding quick reference.
187 Each view has a title window which shows the name of the view, current commit
188 ID if available, and where the view is positioned:
190 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
191 [main] c622eefaa485995320bc743431bae0d497b1d875 - commit 1 of 61 (1%)
192 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
194 By default, the title of the current view is highlighted using bold font. For
195 long loading views (taking over 3 seconds) the time since loading started will
198 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
199 [main] 77d9e40fbcea3238015aea403e06f61542df9a31 - commit 1 of 779 (0%) 5s
200 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
205 Below the default key bindings are shown.
217 Switch to pager view.
221 [[view-manipulation]]
225 Close view, if multiple views are open it will jump back to the
226 previous view in the view stack. If it is the last open view it
227 will quit. Use 'Q' to quit all views at once.
229 This key is "context sensitive" depending on what view you are
230 currently in. When in log view on a commit line or in the main
231 view, split the view and show the commit diff. In the diff view
232 pressing Enter will simply scroll the view one line down.
236 This key is "context sensitive" and will move the cursor one
237 line up. However, uf you opened a diff view from the main view
238 (split- or full-screen) it will change the cursor to point to
239 the previous commit in the main view and update the diff view
242 Similar to 'Up' but will move down.
248 Move cursor one line up.
250 Move cursor one line down.
254 Move cursor one page up.
257 Move cursor one page down.
267 Scroll view one line up.
269 Scroll view one line down.
271 Scroll view one page up.
273 Scroll view one page down.
283 Stop all background loading. This can be useful if you use
284 tig in a repository with a long history without limiting
289 Toggle line numbers on/off.
291 Toggle revision graph visualization on/off.
293 Open prompt. This allows you to specify what git command
299 Revision Specification
300 ----------------------
302 This section describes various ways to specify what revisions to display or
303 otherwise limit the view to. Tig does not itself parse the described
304 revision options so refer to the relevant git man pages for futher
305 information. Relevant man pages besides git-log(1) are git-diff(1) and
308 You can tune the interaction with git by making use of the options explained
309 in this section. For example, by configuring the environment variables
310 described in the <<history-commands, "History commands">> section.
316 If you are interested only in those revisions that made changes to a specific
317 file (or even several files) list the files like this:
319 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
320 $ tig log Makefile README
321 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
323 To avoid ambiguity with repository references such as tag name, be sure to
324 separate file names from other git options using "\--". So if you have a file
325 named 'master' it will clash with the reference named 'master', and thus you
328 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
330 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
332 NOTE: For the main view, avoiding ambiguity will in some cases require you to
333 specify two "\--" options. The first will make tig stop option processing
334 and the latter will be passed to git log.
336 [[date-number-limiting]]
337 Limit by Date or Number
338 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
340 To speed up interaction with git, you can limit the amount of commits to show
341 both for the log and main view. Either limit by date using e.g.
342 `--since=1.month` or limit by the number of commits using `-n400`.
344 If you are only interested in changed that happened between two dates you can
347 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
348 $ tig -- --after="May 5th" --before="2006-05-16 15:44"
349 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
351 NOTE: If you want to avoid having to quote dates containing spaces you can use
352 "." instead, e.g. `--after=May.5th`.
354 [[commit-range-limiting]]
355 Limiting by Commit Ranges
356 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
358 Alternatively, commits can be limited to a specific range, such as "all
359 commits between 'tag-1.0' and 'tag-2.0'". For example:
361 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
362 $ tig log tag-1.0..tag-2.0
363 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
365 This way of commit limiting makes it trivial to only browse the commits which
366 haven't been pushed to a remote branch. Assuming 'origin' is your upstream
367 remote branch, using:
369 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
370 $ tig log origin..HEAD
371 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
373 will list what will be pushed to the remote branch. Optionally, the ending
374 'HEAD' can be left out since it is implied.
376 [[reachability-limiting]]
377 Limiting by Reachability
378 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
380 Git interprets the range specifier "tag-1.0..tag-2.0" as "all commits
381 reachable from 'tag-2.0' but not from 'tag-1.0'". Where reachability refers
382 to what commits are ancestors (or part of the history) of the branch or tagged
383 revision in question.
385 If you prefer to specify which commit to preview in this way use the
388 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
389 $ tig log tag-2.0 ^tag-1.0
390 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
392 You can think of '^' as a negation operator. Using this alternate syntax, it
393 is possible to further prune commits by specifying multiple branch cut offs.
396 Combining Revisions Specification
397 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
399 Revisions options can to some degree be combined, which makes it possible to
400 say "show at most 20 commits from within the last month that changed files
401 under the Documentation/ directory."
403 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
404 $ tig -- --since=1.month -n20 -- Documentation/
405 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
408 Examining All Repository References
409 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
411 In some cases, it can be useful to query changes across all references in a
412 repository. An example is to ask "did any line of development in this
413 repository change a particular file within the last week". This can be
416 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
417 $ tig -- --all --since=1.week -- Makefile
418 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
426 Copyright (c) 2006 Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>
428 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
429 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
430 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
431 (at your option) any later version.
434 References and Related Tools
435 ----------------------------
448 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/[git],
449 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/cogito/docs/[Cogito]
451 Other git repository browsers: