Autogenerated HTML docs for v2.45.1-204-gd8ab1
[git-htmldocs.git] / gitfaq.html
blob3ca5875c2be86807e93afc0e424211df7f5a16d0
1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
3 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
4 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
5 <head>
6 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8" />
7 <meta name="generator" content="AsciiDoc 10.2.0" />
8 <title>gitfaq(7)</title>
9 <style type="text/css">
10 /* Shared CSS for AsciiDoc xhtml11 and html5 backends */
12 /* Default font. */
13 body {
14 font-family: Georgia,serif;
17 /* Title font. */
18 h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6,
19 div.title, caption.title,
20 thead, p.table.header,
21 #toctitle,
22 #author, #revnumber, #revdate, #revremark,
23 #footer {
24 font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
27 body {
28 margin: 1em 5% 1em 5%;
31 a {
32 color: blue;
33 text-decoration: underline;
35 a:visited {
36 color: fuchsia;
39 em {
40 font-style: italic;
41 color: navy;
44 strong {
45 font-weight: bold;
46 color: #083194;
49 h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
50 color: #527bbd;
51 margin-top: 1.2em;
52 margin-bottom: 0.5em;
53 line-height: 1.3;
56 h1, h2, h3 {
57 border-bottom: 2px solid silver;
59 h2 {
60 padding-top: 0.5em;
62 h3 {
63 float: left;
65 h3 + * {
66 clear: left;
68 h5 {
69 font-size: 1.0em;
72 div.sectionbody {
73 margin-left: 0;
76 hr {
77 border: 1px solid silver;
80 p {
81 margin-top: 0.5em;
82 margin-bottom: 0.5em;
85 ul, ol, li > p {
86 margin-top: 0;
88 ul > li { color: #aaa; }
89 ul > li > * { color: black; }
91 .monospaced, code, pre {
92 font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;
93 font-size: inherit;
94 color: navy;
95 padding: 0;
96 margin: 0;
98 pre {
99 white-space: pre-wrap;
102 #author {
103 color: #527bbd;
104 font-weight: bold;
105 font-size: 1.1em;
107 #email {
109 #revnumber, #revdate, #revremark {
112 #footer {
113 font-size: small;
114 border-top: 2px solid silver;
115 padding-top: 0.5em;
116 margin-top: 4.0em;
118 #footer-text {
119 float: left;
120 padding-bottom: 0.5em;
122 #footer-badges {
123 float: right;
124 padding-bottom: 0.5em;
127 #preamble {
128 margin-top: 1.5em;
129 margin-bottom: 1.5em;
131 div.imageblock, div.exampleblock, div.verseblock,
132 div.quoteblock, div.literalblock, div.listingblock, div.sidebarblock,
133 div.admonitionblock {
134 margin-top: 1.0em;
135 margin-bottom: 1.5em;
137 div.admonitionblock {
138 margin-top: 2.0em;
139 margin-bottom: 2.0em;
140 margin-right: 10%;
141 color: #606060;
144 div.content { /* Block element content. */
145 padding: 0;
148 /* Block element titles. */
149 div.title, caption.title {
150 color: #527bbd;
151 font-weight: bold;
152 text-align: left;
153 margin-top: 1.0em;
154 margin-bottom: 0.5em;
156 div.title + * {
157 margin-top: 0;
160 td div.title:first-child {
161 margin-top: 0.0em;
163 div.content div.title:first-child {
164 margin-top: 0.0em;
166 div.content + div.title {
167 margin-top: 0.0em;
170 div.sidebarblock > div.content {
171 background: #ffffee;
172 border: 1px solid #dddddd;
173 border-left: 4px solid #f0f0f0;
174 padding: 0.5em;
177 div.listingblock > div.content {
178 border: 1px solid #dddddd;
179 border-left: 5px solid #f0f0f0;
180 background: #f8f8f8;
181 padding: 0.5em;
184 div.quoteblock, div.verseblock {
185 padding-left: 1.0em;
186 margin-left: 1.0em;
187 margin-right: 10%;
188 border-left: 5px solid #f0f0f0;
189 color: #888;
192 div.quoteblock > div.attribution {
193 padding-top: 0.5em;
194 text-align: right;
197 div.verseblock > pre.content {
198 font-family: inherit;
199 font-size: inherit;
201 div.verseblock > div.attribution {
202 padding-top: 0.75em;
203 text-align: left;
205 /* DEPRECATED: Pre version 8.2.7 verse style literal block. */
206 div.verseblock + div.attribution {
207 text-align: left;
210 div.admonitionblock .icon {
211 vertical-align: top;
212 font-size: 1.1em;
213 font-weight: bold;
214 text-decoration: underline;
215 color: #527bbd;
216 padding-right: 0.5em;
218 div.admonitionblock td.content {
219 padding-left: 0.5em;
220 border-left: 3px solid #dddddd;
223 div.exampleblock > div.content {
224 border-left: 3px solid #dddddd;
225 padding-left: 0.5em;
228 div.imageblock div.content { padding-left: 0; }
229 span.image img { border-style: none; vertical-align: text-bottom; }
230 a.image:visited { color: white; }
232 dl {
233 margin-top: 0.8em;
234 margin-bottom: 0.8em;
236 dt {
237 margin-top: 0.5em;
238 margin-bottom: 0;
239 font-style: normal;
240 color: navy;
242 dd > *:first-child {
243 margin-top: 0.1em;
246 ul, ol {
247 list-style-position: outside;
249 ol.arabic {
250 list-style-type: decimal;
252 ol.loweralpha {
253 list-style-type: lower-alpha;
255 ol.upperalpha {
256 list-style-type: upper-alpha;
258 ol.lowerroman {
259 list-style-type: lower-roman;
261 ol.upperroman {
262 list-style-type: upper-roman;
265 div.compact ul, div.compact ol,
266 div.compact p, div.compact p,
267 div.compact div, div.compact div {
268 margin-top: 0.1em;
269 margin-bottom: 0.1em;
272 tfoot {
273 font-weight: bold;
275 td > div.verse {
276 white-space: pre;
279 div.hdlist {
280 margin-top: 0.8em;
281 margin-bottom: 0.8em;
283 div.hdlist tr {
284 padding-bottom: 15px;
286 dt.hdlist1.strong, td.hdlist1.strong {
287 font-weight: bold;
289 td.hdlist1 {
290 vertical-align: top;
291 font-style: normal;
292 padding-right: 0.8em;
293 color: navy;
295 td.hdlist2 {
296 vertical-align: top;
298 div.hdlist.compact tr {
299 margin: 0;
300 padding-bottom: 0;
303 .comment {
304 background: yellow;
307 .footnote, .footnoteref {
308 font-size: 0.8em;
311 span.footnote, span.footnoteref {
312 vertical-align: super;
315 #footnotes {
316 margin: 20px 0 20px 0;
317 padding: 7px 0 0 0;
320 #footnotes div.footnote {
321 margin: 0 0 5px 0;
324 #footnotes hr {
325 border: none;
326 border-top: 1px solid silver;
327 height: 1px;
328 text-align: left;
329 margin-left: 0;
330 width: 20%;
331 min-width: 100px;
334 div.colist td {
335 padding-right: 0.5em;
336 padding-bottom: 0.3em;
337 vertical-align: top;
339 div.colist td img {
340 margin-top: 0.3em;
343 @media print {
344 #footer-badges { display: none; }
347 #toc {
348 margin-bottom: 2.5em;
351 #toctitle {
352 color: #527bbd;
353 font-size: 1.1em;
354 font-weight: bold;
355 margin-top: 1.0em;
356 margin-bottom: 0.1em;
359 div.toclevel0, div.toclevel1, div.toclevel2, div.toclevel3, div.toclevel4 {
360 margin-top: 0;
361 margin-bottom: 0;
363 div.toclevel2 {
364 margin-left: 2em;
365 font-size: 0.9em;
367 div.toclevel3 {
368 margin-left: 4em;
369 font-size: 0.9em;
371 div.toclevel4 {
372 margin-left: 6em;
373 font-size: 0.9em;
376 span.aqua { color: aqua; }
377 span.black { color: black; }
378 span.blue { color: blue; }
379 span.fuchsia { color: fuchsia; }
380 span.gray { color: gray; }
381 span.green { color: green; }
382 span.lime { color: lime; }
383 span.maroon { color: maroon; }
384 span.navy { color: navy; }
385 span.olive { color: olive; }
386 span.purple { color: purple; }
387 span.red { color: red; }
388 span.silver { color: silver; }
389 span.teal { color: teal; }
390 span.white { color: white; }
391 span.yellow { color: yellow; }
393 span.aqua-background { background: aqua; }
394 span.black-background { background: black; }
395 span.blue-background { background: blue; }
396 span.fuchsia-background { background: fuchsia; }
397 span.gray-background { background: gray; }
398 span.green-background { background: green; }
399 span.lime-background { background: lime; }
400 span.maroon-background { background: maroon; }
401 span.navy-background { background: navy; }
402 span.olive-background { background: olive; }
403 span.purple-background { background: purple; }
404 span.red-background { background: red; }
405 span.silver-background { background: silver; }
406 span.teal-background { background: teal; }
407 span.white-background { background: white; }
408 span.yellow-background { background: yellow; }
410 span.big { font-size: 2em; }
411 span.small { font-size: 0.6em; }
413 span.underline { text-decoration: underline; }
414 span.overline { text-decoration: overline; }
415 span.line-through { text-decoration: line-through; }
417 div.unbreakable { page-break-inside: avoid; }
421 * xhtml11 specific
423 * */
425 div.tableblock {
426 margin-top: 1.0em;
427 margin-bottom: 1.5em;
429 div.tableblock > table {
430 border: 3px solid #527bbd;
432 thead, p.table.header {
433 font-weight: bold;
434 color: #527bbd;
436 p.table {
437 margin-top: 0;
439 /* Because the table frame attribute is overridden by CSS in most browsers. */
440 div.tableblock > table[frame="void"] {
441 border-style: none;
443 div.tableblock > table[frame="hsides"] {
444 border-left-style: none;
445 border-right-style: none;
447 div.tableblock > table[frame="vsides"] {
448 border-top-style: none;
449 border-bottom-style: none;
454 * html5 specific
456 * */
458 table.tableblock {
459 margin-top: 1.0em;
460 margin-bottom: 1.5em;
462 thead, p.tableblock.header {
463 font-weight: bold;
464 color: #527bbd;
466 p.tableblock {
467 margin-top: 0;
469 table.tableblock {
470 border-width: 3px;
471 border-spacing: 0px;
472 border-style: solid;
473 border-color: #527bbd;
474 border-collapse: collapse;
476 th.tableblock, td.tableblock {
477 border-width: 1px;
478 padding: 4px;
479 border-style: solid;
480 border-color: #527bbd;
483 table.tableblock.frame-topbot {
484 border-left-style: hidden;
485 border-right-style: hidden;
487 table.tableblock.frame-sides {
488 border-top-style: hidden;
489 border-bottom-style: hidden;
491 table.tableblock.frame-none {
492 border-style: hidden;
495 th.tableblock.halign-left, td.tableblock.halign-left {
496 text-align: left;
498 th.tableblock.halign-center, td.tableblock.halign-center {
499 text-align: center;
501 th.tableblock.halign-right, td.tableblock.halign-right {
502 text-align: right;
505 th.tableblock.valign-top, td.tableblock.valign-top {
506 vertical-align: top;
508 th.tableblock.valign-middle, td.tableblock.valign-middle {
509 vertical-align: middle;
511 th.tableblock.valign-bottom, td.tableblock.valign-bottom {
512 vertical-align: bottom;
517 * manpage specific
519 * */
521 body.manpage h1 {
522 padding-top: 0.5em;
523 padding-bottom: 0.5em;
524 border-top: 2px solid silver;
525 border-bottom: 2px solid silver;
527 body.manpage h2 {
528 border-style: none;
530 body.manpage div.sectionbody {
531 margin-left: 3em;
534 @media print {
535 body.manpage div#toc { display: none; }
539 </style>
540 <script type="text/javascript">
541 /*<![CDATA[*/
542 var asciidoc = { // Namespace.
544 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
545 // Table Of Contents generator
546 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
548 /* Author: Mihai Bazon, September 2002
549 * http://students.infoiasi.ro/~mishoo
551 * Table Of Content generator
552 * Version: 0.4
554 * Feel free to use this script under the terms of the GNU General Public
555 * License, as long as you do not remove or alter this notice.
558 /* modified by Troy D. Hanson, September 2006. License: GPL */
559 /* modified by Stuart Rackham, 2006, 2009. License: GPL */
561 // toclevels = 1..4.
562 toc: function (toclevels) {
564 function getText(el) {
565 var text = "";
566 for (var i = el.firstChild; i != null; i = i.nextSibling) {
567 if (i.nodeType == 3 /* Node.TEXT_NODE */) // IE doesn't speak constants.
568 text += i.data;
569 else if (i.firstChild != null)
570 text += getText(i);
572 return text;
575 function TocEntry(el, text, toclevel) {
576 this.element = el;
577 this.text = text;
578 this.toclevel = toclevel;
581 function tocEntries(el, toclevels) {
582 var result = new Array;
583 var re = new RegExp('[hH]([1-'+(toclevels+1)+'])');
584 // Function that scans the DOM tree for header elements (the DOM2
585 // nodeIterator API would be a better technique but not supported by all
586 // browsers).
587 var iterate = function (el) {
588 for (var i = el.firstChild; i != null; i = i.nextSibling) {
589 if (i.nodeType == 1 /* Node.ELEMENT_NODE */) {
590 var mo = re.exec(i.tagName);
591 if (mo && (i.getAttribute("class") || i.getAttribute("className")) != "float") {
592 result[result.length] = new TocEntry(i, getText(i), mo[1]-1);
594 iterate(i);
598 iterate(el);
599 return result;
602 var toc = document.getElementById("toc");
603 if (!toc) {
604 return;
607 // Delete existing TOC entries in case we're reloading the TOC.
608 var tocEntriesToRemove = [];
609 var i;
610 for (i = 0; i < toc.childNodes.length; i++) {
611 var entry = toc.childNodes[i];
612 if (entry.nodeName.toLowerCase() == 'div'
613 && entry.getAttribute("class")
614 && entry.getAttribute("class").match(/^toclevel/))
615 tocEntriesToRemove.push(entry);
617 for (i = 0; i < tocEntriesToRemove.length; i++) {
618 toc.removeChild(tocEntriesToRemove[i]);
621 // Rebuild TOC entries.
622 var entries = tocEntries(document.getElementById("content"), toclevels);
623 for (var i = 0; i < entries.length; ++i) {
624 var entry = entries[i];
625 if (entry.element.id == "")
626 entry.element.id = "_toc_" + i;
627 var a = document.createElement("a");
628 a.href = "#" + entry.element.id;
629 a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(entry.text));
630 var div = document.createElement("div");
631 div.appendChild(a);
632 div.className = "toclevel" + entry.toclevel;
633 toc.appendChild(div);
635 if (entries.length == 0)
636 toc.parentNode.removeChild(toc);
640 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
641 // Footnotes generator
642 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
644 /* Based on footnote generation code from:
645 * http://www.brandspankingnew.net/archive/2005/07/format_footnote.html
648 footnotes: function () {
649 // Delete existing footnote entries in case we're reloading the footnodes.
650 var i;
651 var noteholder = document.getElementById("footnotes");
652 if (!noteholder) {
653 return;
655 var entriesToRemove = [];
656 for (i = 0; i < noteholder.childNodes.length; i++) {
657 var entry = noteholder.childNodes[i];
658 if (entry.nodeName.toLowerCase() == 'div' && entry.getAttribute("class") == "footnote")
659 entriesToRemove.push(entry);
661 for (i = 0; i < entriesToRemove.length; i++) {
662 noteholder.removeChild(entriesToRemove[i]);
665 // Rebuild footnote entries.
666 var cont = document.getElementById("content");
667 var spans = cont.getElementsByTagName("span");
668 var refs = {};
669 var n = 0;
670 for (i=0; i<spans.length; i++) {
671 if (spans[i].className == "footnote") {
672 n++;
673 var note = spans[i].getAttribute("data-note");
674 if (!note) {
675 // Use [\s\S] in place of . so multi-line matches work.
676 // Because JavaScript has no s (dotall) regex flag.
677 note = spans[i].innerHTML.match(/\s*\[([\s\S]*)]\s*/)[1];
678 spans[i].innerHTML =
679 "[<a id='_footnoteref_" + n + "' href='#_footnote_" + n +
680 "' title='View footnote' class='footnote'>" + n + "</a>]";
681 spans[i].setAttribute("data-note", note);
683 noteholder.innerHTML +=
684 "<div class='footnote' id='_footnote_" + n + "'>" +
685 "<a href='#_footnoteref_" + n + "' title='Return to text'>" +
686 n + "</a>. " + note + "</div>";
687 var id =spans[i].getAttribute("id");
688 if (id != null) refs["#"+id] = n;
691 if (n == 0)
692 noteholder.parentNode.removeChild(noteholder);
693 else {
694 // Process footnoterefs.
695 for (i=0; i<spans.length; i++) {
696 if (spans[i].className == "footnoteref") {
697 var href = spans[i].getElementsByTagName("a")[0].getAttribute("href");
698 href = href.match(/#.*/)[0]; // Because IE return full URL.
699 n = refs[href];
700 spans[i].innerHTML =
701 "[<a href='#_footnote_" + n +
702 "' title='View footnote' class='footnote'>" + n + "</a>]";
708 install: function(toclevels) {
709 var timerId;
711 function reinstall() {
712 asciidoc.footnotes();
713 if (toclevels) {
714 asciidoc.toc(toclevels);
718 function reinstallAndRemoveTimer() {
719 clearInterval(timerId);
720 reinstall();
723 timerId = setInterval(reinstall, 500);
724 if (document.addEventListener)
725 document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", reinstallAndRemoveTimer, false);
726 else
727 window.onload = reinstallAndRemoveTimer;
731 asciidoc.install();
732 /*]]>*/
733 </script>
734 </head>
735 <body class="manpage">
736 <div id="header">
737 <h1>
738 gitfaq(7) Manual Page
739 </h1>
740 <h2>NAME</h2>
741 <div class="sectionbody">
742 <p>gitfaq -
743 Frequently asked questions about using Git
744 </p>
745 </div>
746 </div>
747 <div id="content">
748 <div class="sect1">
749 <h2 id="_synopsis">SYNOPSIS</h2>
750 <div class="sectionbody">
751 <div class="paragraph"><p>gitfaq</p></div>
752 </div>
753 </div>
754 <div class="sect1">
755 <h2 id="_description">DESCRIPTION</h2>
756 <div class="sectionbody">
757 <div class="paragraph"><p>The examples in this FAQ assume a standard POSIX shell, like <code>bash</code> or <code>dash</code>,
758 and a user, A U Thor, who has the account <code>author</code> on the hosting provider
759 <code>git.example.org</code>.</p></div>
760 </div>
761 </div>
762 <div class="sect1">
763 <h2 id="_configuration">Configuration</h2>
764 <div class="sectionbody">
765 <div class="dlist" id="user-name"><dl>
766 <dt class="hdlist1">
767 What should I put in <code>user.name</code>?
768 </dt>
769 <dd>
771 You should put your personal name, generally a form using a given name
772 and family name. For example, the current maintainer of Git uses "Junio
773 C Hamano". This will be the name portion that is stored in every commit
774 you make.
775 </p>
776 <div class="paragraph"><p>This configuration doesn&#8217;t have any effect on authenticating to remote services;
777 for that, see <code>credential.username</code> in <a href="git-config.html">git-config(1)</a>.</p></div>
778 </dd>
779 <dt class="hdlist1">
780 What does <code>http.postBuffer</code> really do?
781 </dt>
782 <dd>
784 This option changes the size of the buffer that Git uses when pushing
785 data to a remote over HTTP or HTTPS. If the data is larger than this
786 size, libcurl, which handles the HTTP support for Git, will use chunked
787 transfer encoding since it isn&#8217;t known ahead of time what the size of
788 the pushed data will be.
789 </p>
790 <div class="paragraph" id="http-postbuffer"><p>Leaving this value at the default size is fine unless you know that either the
791 remote server or a proxy in the middle doesn&#8217;t support HTTP/1.1 (which
792 introduced the chunked transfer encoding) or is known to be broken with chunked
793 data. This is often (erroneously) suggested as a solution for generic push
794 problems, but since almost every server and proxy supports at least HTTP/1.1,
795 raising this value usually doesn&#8217;t solve most push problems. A server or proxy
796 that didn&#8217;t correctly support HTTP/1.1 and chunked transfer encoding wouldn&#8217;t be
797 that useful on the Internet today, since it would break lots of traffic.</p></div>
798 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that increasing this value will increase the memory used on every relevant
799 push that Git does over HTTP or HTTPS, since the entire buffer is allocated
800 regardless of whether or not it is all used. Thus, it&#8217;s best to leave it at the
801 default unless you are sure you need a different value.</p></div>
802 </dd>
803 <dt class="hdlist1">
804 How do I configure a different editor?
805 </dt>
806 <dd>
808 If you haven&#8217;t specified an editor specifically for Git, it will by default
809 use the editor you&#8217;ve configured using the <code>VISUAL</code> or <code>EDITOR</code> environment
810 variables, or if neither is specified, the system default (which is usually
811 <code>vi</code>). Since some people find <code>vi</code> difficult to use or prefer a different
812 editor, it may be desirable to change the editor used.
813 </p>
814 <div class="paragraph" id="configure-editor"><p>If you want to configure a general editor for most programs which need one, you
815 can edit your shell configuration (e.g., <code>~/.bashrc</code> or <code>~/.zshenv</code>) to contain
816 a line setting the <code>EDITOR</code> or <code>VISUAL</code> environment variable to an appropriate
817 value. For example, if you prefer the editor <code>nano</code>, then you could write the
818 following:</p></div>
819 <div class="listingblock">
820 <div class="content">
821 <pre><code>export VISUAL=nano</code></pre>
822 </div></div>
823 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want to configure an editor specifically for Git, you can either set the
824 <code>core.editor</code> configuration value or the <code>GIT_EDITOR</code> environment variable. You
825 can see <a href="git-var.html">git-var(1)</a> for details on the order in which these options are
826 consulted.</p></div>
827 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that in all cases, the editor value will be passed to the shell, so any
828 arguments containing spaces should be appropriately quoted. Additionally, if
829 your editor normally detaches from the terminal when invoked, you should specify
830 it with an argument that makes it not do that, or else Git will not see any
831 changes. An example of a configuration addressing both of these issues on
832 Windows would be the configuration <code>"C:\Program Files\Vim\gvim.exe" --nofork</code>,
833 which quotes the filename with spaces and specifies the <code>--nofork</code> option to
834 avoid backgrounding the process.</p></div>
835 </dd>
836 </dl></div>
837 </div>
838 </div>
839 <div class="sect1">
840 <h2 id="_credentials">Credentials</h2>
841 <div class="sectionbody">
842 <div class="dlist" id="http-credentials"><dl>
843 <dt class="hdlist1">
844 How do I specify my credentials when pushing over HTTP?
845 </dt>
846 <dd>
848 The easiest way to do this is to use a credential helper via the
849 <code>credential.helper</code> configuration. Most systems provide a standard
850 choice to integrate with the system credential manager. For example,
851 Git for Windows provides the <code>wincred</code> credential manager, macOS has the
852 <code>osxkeychain</code> credential manager, and Unix systems with a standard
853 desktop environment can use the <code>libsecret</code> credential manager. All of
854 these store credentials in an encrypted store to keep your passwords or
855 tokens secure.
856 </p>
857 <div class="paragraph"><p>In addition, you can use the <code>store</code> credential manager which stores in a file
858 in your home directory, or the <code>cache</code> credential manager, which does not
859 permanently store your credentials, but does prevent you from being prompted for
860 them for a certain period of time.</p></div>
861 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can also just enter your password when prompted. While it is possible to
862 place the password (which must be percent-encoded) in the URL, this is not
863 particularly secure and can lead to accidental exposure of credentials, so it is
864 not recommended.</p></div>
865 </dd>
866 <dt class="hdlist1">
867 How do I read a password or token from an environment variable?
868 </dt>
869 <dd>
871 The <code>credential.helper</code> configuration option can also take an arbitrary
872 shell command that produces the credential protocol on standard output.
873 This is useful when passing credentials into a container, for example.
874 </p>
875 <div class="paragraph" id="http-credentials-environment"><p>Such a shell command can be specified by starting the option value with an
876 exclamation point. If your password or token were stored in the <code>GIT_TOKEN</code>,
877 you could run the following command to set your credential helper:</p></div>
878 <div class="listingblock">
879 <div class="content">
880 <pre><code>$ git config credential.helper \
881 '!f() { echo username=author; echo "password=$GIT_TOKEN"; };f'</code></pre>
882 </div></div>
883 </dd>
884 <dt class="hdlist1">
885 How do I change the password or token I&#8217;ve saved in my credential manager?
886 </dt>
887 <dd>
889 Usually, if the password or token is invalid, Git will erase it and
890 prompt for a new one. However, there are times when this doesn&#8217;t always
891 happen. To change the password or token, you can erase the existing
892 credentials and then Git will prompt for new ones. To erase
893 credentials, use a syntax like the following (substituting your username
894 and the hostname):
895 </p>
896 <div class="listingblock" id="http-reset-credentials">
897 <div class="content">
898 <pre><code>$ echo url=https://author@git.example.org | git credential reject</code></pre>
899 </div></div>
900 </dd>
901 <dt class="hdlist1">
902 How do I use multiple accounts with the same hosting provider using HTTP?
903 </dt>
904 <dd>
906 Usually the easiest way to distinguish between these accounts is to use
907 the username in the URL. For example, if you have the accounts <code>author</code>
908 and <code>committer</code> on <code>git.example.org</code>, you can use the URLs
909 <a href="https://author@git.example.org/org1/project1.git">https://author@git.example.org/org1/project1.git</a> and
910 <a href="https://committer@git.example.org/org2/project2.git">https://committer@git.example.org/org2/project2.git</a>. This way, when you
911 use a credential helper, it will automatically try to look up the
912 correct credentials for your account. If you already have a remote set
913 up, you can change the URL with something like <code>git remote set-url
914 origin https://author@git.example.org/org1/project1.git</code> (see
915 <a href="git-remote.html">git-remote(1)</a> for details).
916 </p>
917 </dd>
918 <dt class="hdlist1">
919 How do I use multiple accounts with the same hosting provider using SSH?
920 </dt>
921 <dd>
923 With most hosting providers that support SSH, a single key pair uniquely
924 identifies a user. Therefore, to use multiple accounts, it&#8217;s necessary
925 to create a key pair for each account. If you&#8217;re using a reasonably
926 modern OpenSSH version, you can create a new key pair with something
927 like <code>ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/id_committer</code>. You can then
928 register the public key (in this case, <code>~/.ssh/id_committer.pub</code>; note
929 the <code>.pub</code>) with the hosting provider.
930 </p>
931 <div class="paragraph" id="multiple-accounts-ssh"><p>Most hosting providers use a single SSH account for pushing; that is, all users
932 push to the <code>git</code> account (e.g., <code>git@git.example.org</code>). If that&#8217;s the case for
933 your provider, you can set up multiple aliases in SSH to make it clear which key
934 pair to use. For example, you could write something like the following in
935 <code>~/.ssh/config</code>, substituting the proper private key file:</p></div>
936 <div class="listingblock">
937 <div class="content">
938 <pre><code># This is the account for author on git.example.org.
939 Host example_author
940 HostName git.example.org
941 User git
942 # This is the key pair registered for author with git.example.org.
943 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_author
944 IdentitiesOnly yes
945 # This is the account for committer on git.example.org.
946 Host example_committer
947 HostName git.example.org
948 User git
949 # This is the key pair registered for committer with git.example.org.
950 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_committer
951 IdentitiesOnly yes</code></pre>
952 </div></div>
953 <div class="paragraph"><p>Then, you can adjust your push URL to use <code>git@example_author</code> or
954 <code>git@example_committer</code> instead of <code>git@example.org</code> (e.g., <code>git remote set-url
955 git@example_author:org1/project1.git</code>).</p></div>
956 </dd>
957 </dl></div>
958 </div>
959 </div>
960 <div class="sect1">
961 <h2 id="_common_issues">Common Issues</h2>
962 <div class="sectionbody">
963 <div class="dlist" id="last-commit-amend"><dl>
964 <dt class="hdlist1">
965 I&#8217;ve made a mistake in the last commit. How do I change it?
966 </dt>
967 <dd>
969 You can make the appropriate change to your working tree, run <code>git add
970 &lt;file&gt;</code> or <code>git rm &lt;file&gt;</code>, as appropriate, to stage it, and then <code>git
971 commit --amend</code>. Your change will be included in the commit, and you&#8217;ll
972 be prompted to edit the commit message again; if you wish to use the
973 original message verbatim, you can use the <code>--no-edit</code> option to <code>git
974 commit</code> in addition, or just save and quit when your editor opens.
975 </p>
976 </dd>
977 <dt class="hdlist1">
978 I&#8217;ve made a change with a bug and it&#8217;s been included in the main branch. How should I undo it?
979 </dt>
980 <dd>
982 The usual way to deal with this is to use <code>git revert</code>. This preserves
983 the history that the original change was made and was a valuable
984 contribution, but also introduces a new commit that undoes those changes
985 because the original had a problem. The commit message of the revert
986 indicates the commit which was reverted and is usually edited to include
987 an explanation as to why the revert was made.
988 </p>
989 </dd>
990 <dt class="hdlist1">
991 How do I ignore changes to a tracked file?
992 </dt>
993 <dd>
995 Git doesn&#8217;t provide a way to do this. The reason is that if Git needs
996 to overwrite this file, such as during a checkout, it doesn&#8217;t know
997 whether the changes to the file are precious and should be kept, or
998 whether they are irrelevant and can safely be destroyed. Therefore, it
999 has to take the safe route and always preserve them.
1000 </p>
1001 <div class="paragraph" id="ignore-tracked-files"><p>It&#8217;s tempting to try to use certain features of <code>git update-index</code>, namely the
1002 assume-unchanged and skip-worktree bits, but these don&#8217;t work properly for this
1003 purpose and shouldn&#8217;t be used this way.</p></div>
1004 <div class="paragraph"><p>If your goal is to modify a configuration file, it can often be helpful to have
1005 a file checked into the repository which is a template or set of defaults which
1006 can then be copied alongside and modified as appropriate. This second, modified
1007 file is usually ignored to prevent accidentally committing it.</p></div>
1008 </dd>
1009 <dt class="hdlist1">
1010 I asked Git to ignore various files, yet they are still tracked
1011 </dt>
1012 <dd>
1014 A <code>gitignore</code> file ensures that certain file(s) which are not
1015 tracked by Git remain untracked. However, sometimes particular
1016 file(s) may have been tracked before adding them into the
1017 <code>.gitignore</code>, hence they still remain tracked. To untrack and
1018 ignore files/patterns, use <code>git rm --cached &lt;file/pattern&gt;</code>
1019 and add a pattern to <code>.gitignore</code> that matches the &lt;file&gt;.
1020 See <a href="gitignore.html">gitignore(5)</a> for details.
1021 </p>
1022 </dd>
1023 <dt class="hdlist1">
1024 How do I know if I want to do a fetch or a pull?
1025 </dt>
1026 <dd>
1028 A fetch stores a copy of the latest changes from the remote
1029 repository, without modifying the working tree or current branch.
1030 You can then at your leisure inspect, merge, rebase on top of, or
1031 ignore the upstream changes. A pull consists of a fetch followed
1032 immediately by either a merge or rebase. See <a href="git-pull.html">git-pull(1)</a>.
1033 </p>
1034 </dd>
1035 </dl></div>
1036 </div>
1037 </div>
1038 <div class="sect1">
1039 <h2 id="fetching-and-pulling">Merging and Rebasing</h2>
1040 <div class="sectionbody">
1041 <div class="dlist" id="long-running-squash-merge"><dl>
1042 <dt class="hdlist1">
1043 What kinds of problems can occur when merging long-lived branches with squash merges?
1044 </dt>
1045 <dd>
1047 In general, there are a variety of problems that can occur when using squash
1048 merges to merge two branches multiple times. These can include seeing extra
1049 commits in <code>git log</code> output, with a GUI, or when using the <code>...</code> notation to
1050 express a range, as well as the possibility of needing to re-resolve conflicts
1051 again and again.
1052 </p>
1053 <div class="paragraph"><p>When Git does a normal merge between two branches, it considers exactly three
1054 points: the two branches and a third commit, called the <em>merge base</em>, which is
1055 usually the common ancestor of the commits. The result of the merge is the sum
1056 of the changes between the merge base and each head. When you merge two
1057 branches with a regular merge commit, this results in a new commit which will
1058 end up as a merge base when they&#8217;re merged again, because there is now a new
1059 common ancestor. Git doesn&#8217;t have to consider changes that occurred before the
1060 merge base, so you don&#8217;t have to re-resolve any conflicts you resolved before.</p></div>
1061 <div class="paragraph"><p>When you perform a squash merge, a merge commit isn&#8217;t created; instead, the
1062 changes from one side are applied as a regular commit to the other side. This
1063 means that the merge base for these branches won&#8217;t have changed, and so when Git
1064 goes to perform its next merge, it considers all of the changes that it
1065 considered the last time plus the new changes. That means any conflicts may
1066 need to be re-resolved. Similarly, anything using the <code>...</code> notation in <code>git
1067 diff</code>, <code>git log</code>, or a GUI will result in showing all of the changes since the
1068 original merge base.</p></div>
1069 <div class="paragraph"><p>As a consequence, if you want to merge two long-lived branches repeatedly, it&#8217;s
1070 best to always use a regular merge commit.</p></div>
1071 </dd>
1072 <dt class="hdlist1">
1073 If I make a change on two branches but revert it on one, why does the merge of those branches include the change?
1074 </dt>
1075 <dd>
1077 By default, when Git does a merge, it uses a strategy called the <code>ort</code>
1078 strategy, which does a fancy three-way merge. In such a case, when Git
1079 performs the merge, it considers exactly three points: the two heads and a
1080 third point, called the <em>merge base</em>, which is usually the common ancestor of
1081 those commits. Git does not consider the history or the individual commits
1082 that have happened on those branches at all.
1083 </p>
1084 <div class="paragraph" id="merge-two-revert-one"><p>As a result, if both sides have a change and one side has reverted that change,
1085 the result is to include the change. This is because the code has changed on
1086 one side and there is no net change on the other, and in this scenario, Git
1087 adopts the change.</p></div>
1088 <div class="paragraph"><p>If this is a problem for you, you can do a rebase instead, rebasing the branch
1089 with the revert onto the other branch. A rebase in this scenario will revert
1090 the change, because a rebase applies each individual commit, including the
1091 revert. Note that rebases rewrite history, so you should avoid rebasing
1092 published branches unless you&#8217;re sure you&#8217;re comfortable with that. See the
1093 NOTES section in <a href="git-rebase.html">git-rebase(1)</a> for more details.</p></div>
1094 </dd>
1095 </dl></div>
1096 </div>
1097 </div>
1098 <div class="sect1">
1099 <h2 id="_hooks">Hooks</h2>
1100 <div class="sectionbody">
1101 <div class="dlist" id="restrict-with-hooks"><dl>
1102 <dt class="hdlist1">
1103 How do I use hooks to prevent users from making certain changes?
1104 </dt>
1105 <dd>
1107 The only safe place to make these changes is on the remote repository
1108 (i.e., the Git server), usually in the <code>pre-receive</code> hook or in a
1109 continuous integration (CI) system. These are the locations in which
1110 policy can be enforced effectively.
1111 </p>
1112 <div class="paragraph"><p>It&#8217;s common to try to use <code>pre-commit</code> hooks (or, for commit messages,
1113 <code>commit-msg</code> hooks) to check these things, which is great if you&#8217;re working as a
1114 solo developer and want the tooling to help you. However, using hooks on a
1115 developer machine is not effective as a policy control because a user can bypass
1116 these hooks with <code>--no-verify</code> without being noticed (among various other ways).
1117 Git assumes that the user is in control of their local repositories and doesn&#8217;t
1118 try to prevent this or tattle on the user.</p></div>
1119 <div class="paragraph"><p>In addition, some advanced users find <code>pre-commit</code> hooks to be an impediment to
1120 workflows that use temporary commits to stage work in progress or that create
1121 fixup commits, so it&#8217;s better to push these kinds of checks to the server
1122 anyway.</p></div>
1123 </dd>
1124 </dl></div>
1125 </div>
1126 </div>
1127 <div class="sect1">
1128 <h2 id="_cross_platform_issues">Cross-Platform Issues</h2>
1129 <div class="sectionbody">
1130 <div class="dlist" id="windows-text-binary"><dl>
1131 <dt class="hdlist1">
1132 I&#8217;m on Windows and my text files are detected as binary.
1133 </dt>
1134 <dd>
1136 Git works best when you store text files as UTF-8. Many programs on
1137 Windows support UTF-8, but some do not and only use the little-endian
1138 UTF-16 format, which Git detects as binary. If you can&#8217;t use UTF-8 with
1139 your programs, you can specify a working tree encoding that indicates
1140 which encoding your files should be checked out with, while still
1141 storing these files as UTF-8 in the repository. This allows tools like
1142 <a href="git-diff.html">git-diff(1)</a> to work as expected, while still allowing your tools
1143 to work.
1144 </p>
1145 <div class="paragraph"><p>To do so, you can specify a <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a> pattern with the
1146 <code>working-tree-encoding</code> attribute. For example, the following pattern sets all
1147 C files to use UTF-16LE-BOM, which is a common encoding on Windows:</p></div>
1148 <div class="listingblock">
1149 <div class="content">
1150 <pre><code>*.c working-tree-encoding=UTF-16LE-BOM</code></pre>
1151 </div></div>
1152 <div class="paragraph"><p>You will need to run <code>git add --renormalize</code> to have this take effect. Note
1153 that if you are making these changes on a project that is used across platforms,
1154 you&#8217;ll probably want to make it in a per-user configuration file or in the one
1155 in <code>$GIT_DIR/info/attributes</code>, since making it in a <code>.gitattributes</code> file in the
1156 repository will apply to all users of the repository.</p></div>
1157 <div class="paragraph"><p>See the following entry for information about normalizing line endings as well,
1158 and see <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a> for more information about attribute files.</p></div>
1159 </dd>
1160 <dt class="hdlist1">
1161 I&#8217;m on Windows and git diff shows my files as having a <code>^M</code> at the end.
1162 </dt>
1163 <dd>
1165 By default, Git expects files to be stored with Unix line endings. As such,
1166 the carriage return (<code>^M</code>) that is part of a Windows line ending is shown
1167 because it is considered to be trailing whitespace. Git defaults to showing
1168 trailing whitespace only on new lines, not existing ones.
1169 </p>
1170 <div class="paragraph" id="windows-diff-control-m"><p>You can store the files in the repository with Unix line endings and convert
1171 them automatically to your platform&#8217;s line endings. To do that, set the
1172 configuration option <code>core.eol</code> to <code>native</code> and see the following entry for
1173 information about how to configure files as text or binary.</p></div>
1174 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can also control this behavior with the <code>core.whitespace</code> setting if you
1175 don&#8217;t wish to remove the carriage returns from your line endings.</p></div>
1176 </dd>
1177 <dt class="hdlist1">
1178 Why do I have a file that&#8217;s always modified?
1179 </dt>
1180 <dd>
1182 Internally, Git always stores file names as sequences of bytes and doesn&#8217;t
1183 perform any encoding or case folding. However, Windows and macOS by default
1184 both perform case folding on file names. As a result, it&#8217;s possible to end up
1185 with multiple files or directories whose names differ only in case. Git can
1186 handle this just fine, but the file system can store only one of these files,
1187 so when Git reads the other file to see its contents, it looks modified.
1188 </p>
1189 <div class="paragraph" id="always-modified-files-case"><p>It&#8217;s best to remove one of the files such that you only have one file. You can
1190 do this with commands like the following (assuming two files <code>AFile.txt</code> and
1191 <code>afile.txt</code>) on an otherwise clean working tree:</p></div>
1192 <div class="listingblock">
1193 <div class="content">
1194 <pre><code>$ git rm --cached AFile.txt
1195 $ git commit -m 'Remove files conflicting in case'
1196 $ git checkout .</code></pre>
1197 </div></div>
1198 <div class="paragraph"><p>This avoids touching the disk, but removes the additional file. Your project
1199 may prefer to adopt a naming convention, such as all-lowercase names, to avoid
1200 this problem from occurring again; such a convention can be checked using a
1201 <code>pre-receive</code> hook or as part of a continuous integration (CI) system.</p></div>
1202 <div class="paragraph"><p>It is also possible for perpetually modified files to occur on any platform if a
1203 smudge or clean filter is in use on your system but a file was previously
1204 committed without running the smudge or clean filter. To fix this, run the
1205 following on an otherwise clean working tree:</p></div>
1206 <div class="listingblock">
1207 <div class="content">
1208 <pre><code>$ git add --renormalize .</code></pre>
1209 </div></div>
1210 </dd>
1211 <dt class="hdlist1">
1212 What&#8217;s the recommended way to store files in Git?
1213 </dt>
1214 <dd>
1216 While Git can store and handle any file of any type, there are some
1217 settings that work better than others. In general, we recommend that
1218 text files be stored in UTF-8 without a byte-order mark (BOM) with LF
1219 (Unix-style) endings. We also recommend the use of UTF-8 (again,
1220 without BOM) in commit messages. These are the settings that work best
1221 across platforms and with tools such as <code>git diff</code> and <code>git merge</code>.
1222 </p>
1223 <div class="paragraph" id="recommended-storage-settings"><p>Additionally, if you have a choice between storage formats that are text based
1224 or non-text based, we recommend storing files in the text format and, if
1225 necessary, transforming them into the other format. For example, a text-based
1226 SQL dump with one record per line will work much better for diffing and merging
1227 than an actual database file. Similarly, text-based formats such as Markdown
1228 and AsciiDoc will work better than binary formats such as Microsoft Word and
1229 PDF.</p></div>
1230 <div class="paragraph"><p>Similarly, storing binary dependencies (e.g., shared libraries or JAR files) or
1231 build products in the repository is generally not recommended. Dependencies and
1232 build products are best stored on an artifact or package server with only
1233 references, URLs, and hashes stored in the repository.</p></div>
1234 <div class="paragraph"><p>We also recommend setting a <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a> file to explicitly mark
1235 which files are text and which are binary. If you want Git to guess, you can
1236 set the attribute <code>text=auto</code>. For example, the following might be appropriate
1237 in some projects:</p></div>
1238 <div class="listingblock">
1239 <div class="content">
1240 <pre><code># By default, guess.
1241 * text=auto
1242 # Mark all C files as text.
1243 *.c text
1244 # Mark all JPEG files as binary.
1245 *.jpg binary</code></pre>
1246 </div></div>
1247 <div class="paragraph"><p>These settings help tools pick the right format for output such as patches and
1248 result in files being checked out in the appropriate line ending for the
1249 platform.</p></div>
1250 </dd>
1251 </dl></div>
1252 </div>
1253 </div>
1254 <div class="sect1">
1255 <h2 id="_git">GIT</h2>
1256 <div class="sectionbody">
1257 <div class="paragraph"><p>Part of the <a href="git.html">git(1)</a> suite</p></div>
1258 </div>
1259 </div>
1260 </div>
1261 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
1262 <div id="footer">
1263 <div id="footer-text">
1264 Last updated
1265 2021-09-01 16:44:20 PDT
1266 </div>
1267 </div>
1268 </body>
1269 </html>