Misc doc improvements

[tig] / manual.txt

The tig Manual
==============
Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>

This is the manual for tig, the ncurses-based text-mode interface for git.
Tig allows you to browse changes in a git repository and can additionally act
as a pager for output of various git commands. When used as a pager, it will
display input from stdin and colorize it.

When browsing repositories, tig uses the underlying git commands to present
the user with various views, such as summarized commit log and showing the
commit with the log message, diffstat, and the diff.

Calling Conventions
-------------------

Pager Mode
~~~~~~~~~~

If stdin is a pipe, any log or diff options will be ignored and the pager view
will be opened loading data from stdin. The pager mode can be used for
colorizing output from various git commands.

Example on how to colorize the output of git-show(1):

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ git show | tig
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Git Command Options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All git command options specified on the command line will be passed to the
given command and all will be shell quoted before they are passed to the
shell.

NOTE: If you specify options for the main view, you should not use the
`--pretty` option as this option will be set automatically to the format
expected by the main view.

Example on how to open the log view and show both author and committer
information:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig log --pretty=fuller
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

See the <<refspec, "Specifying revisions">> section below for an introduction
to revision options supported by the git commands. For details on specific git
command options, refer to the man page of the command in question.

Environment Variables
---------------------

Several options related to the interface with git can be configured via
environment options.

Repository References
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Commits that are referenced by tags and branch heads will be marked by the
reference name surrounded by '[' and ']':

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2006-03-26 19:42 Petr Baudis         | [cogito-0.17.1] Cogito 0.17.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to filter out certain directories under `.git/refs/`, say `tmp`
you can do it by setting the following variable:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ TIG_LS_REMOTE="git ls-remote . | sed /\/tmp\//d" tig
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Or set the variable permanently in your environment.

TIG_LS_REMOTE::
        Set command for retrieving all repository references. The command
        should output data in the same format as git-ls-remote(1).

[[history-commands]]
History Commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is possible to alter which commands are used for the different views.  If
for example you prefer commits in the main view to be sorted by date and only
show 500 commits, use:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ TIG_MAIN_CMD="git log --date-order -n500 --pretty=raw %s" tig
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Or set the variable permanently in your environment.

Notice, how `%s` is used to specify the commit reference. There can be a
maximum of 5 `%s` ref specifications.

TIG_DIFF_CMD::
        The command used for the diff view. By default, git show is used
        as a backend.

TIG_LOG_CMD::
        The command used for the log view. If you prefer to have both
        author and committer shown in the log view be sure to pass
        `--pretty=fuller` to git log.

TIG_MAIN_CMD::
        The command used for the main view. Note, you must always specify
        the option: `--pretty=raw` since the main view parser expects to
        read that format.

The Viewer
----------

The display consists of a status window on the last line of the screen and one
or more views. The default is to only show one view at the time but it is
possible to split both the main and log view to also show the commit diff.

If you are in the log view and press 'Enter' when the current line is a commit
line, such as:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
commit 4d55caff4cc89335192f3e566004b4ceef572521
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You will split the view so that the log view is displayed in the top window
and the diff view in the bottom window. You can switch between the two views
by pressing 'Tab'. To maximize the log view again, simply press 'l'.

Current Head and Commit ID
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The viewer keeps track of both what head and commit ID you are currently
viewing. The commit ID will follow the cursor line and change everytime time
you highlight a different commit. Whenever you reopen the diff view it will be
reloaded, if the commit ID changed.

The head ID is used when opening the main and log view to indicate from what
revision to show history.

Views
~~~~~

Various 'views' of a repository is presented. Each view is based on output
from an external command, most often 'git log', 'git diff', or 'git show'.

The main view::
        Is the default view, and it shows a one line summary of each commit
        in the chosen list of revisions. The summary includes commit date,
        author, and the first line of the log message. Additionally, any
        repository references, such as tags, will be shown.

The log view::
        Presents a more rich view of the revision log showing the whole log
        message and the diffstat.

The diff view::
        Shows either the diff of the current working tree, that is, what
        has changed since the last commit, or the commit diff complete
        with log message, diffstat and diff.

The pager view::
        Is used for displaying both input from stdin and output from git
        commands entered in the internal prompt.

The help view::
        Displays key binding quick reference.

Title Windows
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Each view has a title window which shows the name of the view, current commit
ID if available, and where the view is positioned:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[main] c622eefaa485995320bc743431bae0d497b1d875 - commit 1 of 61 (1%)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

By default, the title of the current view is highlighted using bold font.  For
long loading views (taking over 3 seconds) the time since loading started will
be appended:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[main] 77d9e40fbcea3238015aea403e06f61542df9a31 - commit 1 of 779 (0%) 5s
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keys
----
Below the default key bindings are shown.

View Switching
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
m::
        Switch to main view.
d::
        Switch to diff view.
l::
        Switch to log view.
p::
        Switch to pager view.
h, ?::
        Show man page.

View Manipulation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
q::
        Close view, if multiple views are open it will jump back to the
        previous view in the view stack. If it is the last open view it
        will quit. Use 'Q' to quit all views at once.
Enter::
        This key is "context sensitive" depending on what view you are
        currently in. When in log view on a commit line or in the main
        view, split the view and show the commit diff. In the diff view
        pressing Enter will simply scroll the view one line down.
Tab::
        Switch to next view.
Up::
        This key is "context sensitive" and will move the cursor one
        line up. However, uf you opened a diff view from the main view
        (split- or full-screen) it will change the cursor to point to
        the previous commit in the main view and update the diff view
        to display it.
Down::
        Similar to 'Up' but will move down.

Cursor Navigation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
j::
        Move cursor one line up.
k::
        Move cursor one line down.
PgUp::
b::
-::
        Move cursor one page up.
PgDown::
Space::
        Move cursor one page down.
Home::
        Jump to first line.
End::
        Jump to last line.

Scrolling
~~~~~~~~~
Insert::
        Scroll view one line up.
Delete::
        Scroll view one line down.
w::
        Scroll view one page up.
s::
        Scroll view one page down.

Misc
~~~~
Q::
        Quit.
r::
        Redraw screen.
z::
        Stop all background loading. This can be useful if you use
        tig in a repository with a long history without limiting
        the revision log.
v::
        Show version.
n::
        Toggle line numbers on/off.
g::
        Toggle revision graph visualization on/off.
':'::
        Open prompt. This allows you to specify what git command
        to run. Example:

        :log -p

[[refspec]]
Revision Specification
----------------------

This section describes various ways to specify what revisions to display or
otherwise limit the view to. Tig does not itself parse the described
revision options so refer to the relevant git man pages for futher
information. Relevant man pages besides git-log(1) are git-diff(1) and
git-rev-list(1).

You can tune the interaction with git by making use of the options explained
in this section. For example, by configuring the environment variables
described in the  <<history-commands, "History commands">> section.

Limit by Path Name
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are interested only in those revisions that made changes to a specific
file (or even several files) list the files like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig log Makefile README
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To avoid ambiguity with repository references such as tag name, be sure to
separate file names from other git options using "\--". So if you have a file
named 'master' it will clash with the reference named 'master', and thus you
will have to use:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig log -- master
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: For the main view, avoiding ambiguity will in some cases require you to
specify two "\--" options. The first will make tig stop option processing
and the latter will be passed to git log.

Limit by Date or Number
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To speed up interaction with git, you can limit the amount of commits to show
both for the log and main view. Either limit by date using e.g.
`--since=1.month` or limit by the number of commits using `-n400`.

If you are only interested in changed that happened between two dates you can
use:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig -- --after="May 5th" --before="2006-05-16 15:44"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: If you want to avoid having to quote dates containing spaces you can use
"." instead, e.g. `--after=May.5th`.

Limiting by Commit Ranges
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alternatively, commits can be limited to a specific range, such as "all
commits between 'tag-1.0' and 'tag-2.0'". For example:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig log tag-1.0..tag-2.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This way of commit limiting makes it trivial to only browse the commits which
haven't been pushed to a remote branch. Assuming 'origin' is your upstream
remote branch, using:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig log origin..HEAD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

will list what will be pushed to the remote branch. Optionally, the ending
'HEAD' can be left out since it is implied.

Limiting by Reachability
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Git interprets the range specifier "tag-1.0..tag-2.0" as "all commits
reachable from 'tag-2.0' but not from 'tag-1.0'".  Where reachability refers
to what commits are ancestors (or part of the history) of the branch or tagged
revision in question.

If you prefer to specify which commit to preview in this way use the
following:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig log tag-2.0 ^tag-1.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can think of '^' as a negation operator. Using this alternate syntax, it
is possible to further prune commits by specifying multiple branch cut offs.

Combining Revisions Specification
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Revisions options can to some degree be combined, which makes it possible to
say "show at most 20 commits from within the last month that changed files
under the Documentation/ directory."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig -- --since=1.month -n20 -- Documentation/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Examining All Repository References
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In some cases, it can be useful to query changes across all references in a
repository. An example is to ask "did any line of development in this
repository change a particular file within the last week". This can be
accomplished using:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ tig -- --all --since=1.week -- Makefile
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

include::BUGS[]

Copyright
---------

Copyright (c) 2006 Jonas Fonseca <fonseca@diku.dk>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

References and Related Tools
----------------------------

Manpages:

 - gitlink:tig[1]
 - gitlink:tigrc[5]

Online resources:

include::SITES[]

Git porcelains:

 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/[git],
 - link:http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/cogito/docs/[Cogito]

Other git repository browsers:

 - gitk(1)
 - qgit(1)
 - gitview(1)