The tig Manual ============== Jonas Fonseca 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. ifndef::backend-docbook[] *Table of Contents* include::manual.toc[] endif::backend-docbook[] [[calling-conventions]] Calling Conventions ------------------- [[pager-mode]] 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [[cmd-options]] 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 <> 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. [[env-variables]] Environment Variables --------------------- Several options related to the interface with git can be configured via environment options. [[repo-refs]] 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. [[tree-commands]] Tree Commands ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TIG_TREE_CMD:: The command used for the tree view. Takes two arguments, the first is the revision ID and the second is the path of the directory tree, empty for the root directory. Defaults to "git ls-tree %s %s". TIG_BLOB_CMD:: The command used for the blob view. Takes one argument which is the blob ID. Defaults to "git cat-file blob %s". [[viewer]] 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'. [[commit-id]] 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 every 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]] 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 tree view:: Lists directory trees associated with the current revision allowing subdirectories to be descended or ascended and file blobs to be viewed. The blob view:: Displays the file content or "blob" of data associated with a file name. The status view:: Displays status of files in the working tree and allows changes to be staged/unstaged as well as adding of untracked files. 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-window]] 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]] Default Keybindings ------------------- Below the default key bindings are shown. [[view-switching]] View Switching ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ `-------`-------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Action ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- m Switch to main view. d Switch to diff view. l Switch to log view. p Switch to pager view. t Switch to (directory) tree view. f Switch to (file) blob view. h Switch to help view S Switch to status view ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [[view-manipulation]] View Manipulation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ `-------`-------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Action ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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, if 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-nav]] Cursor Navigation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ `-------`-------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Action ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- j Move cursor one line up. k Move cursor one line down. PgUp,\ -,a Move cursor one page up. PgDown Space Move cursor one page down. Home Jump to first line. End Jump to last line. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [[view-scrolling]] Scrolling ~~~~~~~~~ `-------`-------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Action ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Insert Scroll view one line up. Delete Scroll view one line down. w Scroll view one page up. s Scroll view one page down. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [[searching]] Searching ~~~~~~~~~ `-------`-------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Action ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- / Search the view. Opens a prompt for entering search regex to use. ? Search backwards in the view. Also prompts for regex. n Find next match for the current search regex. N Find previous match for the current search regex. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [[misc-keys]] Misc ~~~~ `-------`-------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Action ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. '.' 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 further 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 <> section. [[path-limiting]] 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. [[date-number-limiting]] 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`. [[commit-range-limiting]] 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. [[reachability-limiting]] 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. [[refspec-combi]] 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/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [[refspec-all]] 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[] [[copy-right]] Copyright --------- Copyright (c) 2006 Jonas Fonseca 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]] 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)