Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Documentation: revamp gitk(1)
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
The gitk manpage suffers from a bit of neglect: there have been only
minor changes, and no changes to the set of options documented, since
a2df1fb (Documentation: New GUI configuration and command-line
options., 2008-11-13).  In the meantime, the set of rev-list options
has been expanded several times by options that are useful in gitk,
e.g., --ancestry-path and the optional globbing for --branches, --tags
and --remotes.

Restructure and expand the manpage.  List more options that the author
perceives as useful, while remaining somewhat terse.  Ideally the user
should not have to look up any of the references, but we dispense with
precise explanations in some places and refer to git-log(1) instead.

Note that the options that have an easy GUI equivalent (e.g.,
--word-diff, -S, --grep) are deliberately not listed even in the cases
where they simply fill in the GUI fields.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Rast <trast@inf.ethz.ch>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
  • Loading branch information
Thomas Rast authored and Junio C Hamano committed Oct 22, 2013
1 parent 5f737ac commit 744db23
Showing 1 changed file with 83 additions and 24 deletions.
107 changes: 83 additions & 24 deletions Documentation/gitk.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -8,29 +8,46 @@ gitk - The Git repository browser
SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
'gitk' [<option>...] [<revs>] [--] [<path>...]
'gitk' [<options>] [<revision range>] [\--] [<path>...]

DESCRIPTION
-----------
Displays changes in a repository or a selected set of commits. This includes
visualizing the commit graph, showing information related to each commit, and
the files in the trees of each revision.

Historically, gitk was the first repository browser. It's written in tcl/tk
and started off in a separate repository but was later merged into the main
Git repository.

OPTIONS
-------
To control which revisions to show, the command takes options applicable to
the 'git rev-list' command (see linkgit:git-rev-list[1]).
This manual page describes only the most
frequently used options.

-n <number>::
--max-count=<number>::
To control which revisions to show, gitk supports most options
applicable to the 'git rev-list' command. It also supports a few
options applicable to the 'git diff-*' commands to control how the
changes each commit introduces are shown. Finally, it supports some
gitk-specific options.

gitk generally only understands options with arguments in the
'sticked' form (see linkgit:gitcli[7]) due to limitations in the
command line parser.

rev-list options and arguments
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This manual page describes only the most frequently used options. See
linkgit:git-rev-list[1] for a complete list.

--all::

Show all refs (branches, tags, etc.).

Limits the number of commits to show.
--branches[=<pattern>]::
--tags[=<pattern>]::
--remotes[=<pattern>]::

Pretend as if all the branches (tags, remote branches, resp.)
are listed on the command line as '<commit>'. If '<pattern>'
is given, limit refs to ones matching given shell glob. If
pattern lacks '?', '{asterisk}', or '[', '/{asterisk}' at the
end is implied.

--since=<date>::

Expand All @@ -40,9 +57,9 @@ frequently used options.

Show commits older than a specific date.

--all::
--date-order::

Show all branches.
Sort commits by date when possible.

--merge::

Expand All @@ -51,19 +68,37 @@ frequently used options.
that modify the conflicted files and do not exist on all the heads
being merged.

--argscmd=<command>::
Command to be run each time gitk has to determine the list of
<revs> to show. The command is expected to print on its standard
output a list of additional revs to be shown, one per line.
Use this instead of explicitly specifying <revs> if the set of
commits to show may vary between refreshes.
--left-right::

--select-commit=<ref>::
Mark which side of a symmetric diff a commit is reachable
from. Commits from the left side are prefixed with a `<`
symbol and those from the right with a `>` symbol.

Automatically select the specified commit after loading the graph.
Default behavior is equivalent to specifying '--select-commit=HEAD'.
--full-history::

When filtering history with '<path>...', does not prune some
history. (See "History simplification" in linkgit:git-log[1]
for a more detailed explanation.)

--simplify-merges::

<revs>::
Additional option to '--full-history' to remove some needless
merges from the resulting history, as there are no selected
commits contributing to this merge. (See "History
simplification" in linkgit:git-log[1] for a more detailed
explanation.)

--ancestry-path::

When given a range of commits to display
(e.g. 'commit1..commit2' or 'commit2 {caret}commit1'), only
display commits that exist directly on the ancestry chain
between the 'commit1' and 'commit2', i.e. commits that are
both descendants of 'commit1', and ancestors of 'commit2'.
(See "History simplification" in linkgit:git-log[1] for a more
detailed explanation.)

<revision range>::

Limit the revisions to show. This can be either a single revision
meaning show from the given revision and back, or it can be a range in
Expand All @@ -78,6 +113,23 @@ frequently used options.
avoid ambiguity with respect to revision names use "--" to separate the paths
from any preceding options.

gitk-specific options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--argscmd=<command>::

Command to be run each time gitk has to determine the revision
range to show. The command is expected to print on its
standard output a list of additional revisions to be shown,
one per line. Use this instead of explicitly specifying a
'<revision range>' if the set of commits to show may vary
between refreshes.

--select-commit=<ref>::

Select the specified commit after loading the graph.
Default behavior is equivalent to specifying '--select-commit=HEAD'.

Examples
--------
gitk v2.6.12.. include/scsi drivers/scsi::
Expand All @@ -101,6 +153,13 @@ Files
Gitk creates the .gitk file in your $HOME directory to store preferences
such as display options, font, and colors.

History
-------
Gitk was the first graphical repository browser. It's written in
tcl/tk and started off in a separate repository but was later merged
into the main Git repository.


SEE ALSO
--------
'qgit(1)'::
Expand Down

0 comments on commit 744db23

Please sign in to comment.