Ubuntu Manpage: tigmanual - text-mode interface for Git

NAME

       tigmanual - text-mode interface for Git

SYNOPSIS

       tig        [options] [revisions] [--] [paths]
       tig show   [options] [revisions] [--] [paths]
       tig blame  [options] [rev] [--] path
       tig status
       tig <      [Git command output]

DESCRIPTION

       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 view a commit and show both author and committer information:

           $ tig show --pretty=fuller

       See the section on specifying revisions 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.

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 a 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.

Views
Various views of a repository are 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 author 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 reflog view
Presents a view of the reflog allowing to navigate the repo history.

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 blame view
Displays the file content annotated or blamed by commits.

The refs view
Displays the branches, remotes and tags in the repository.

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 stage view
Displays diff changes for staged or unstaged files being tracked or file content of untracked files.

The stash view
Displays the list of stashes in the repository.

The grep view
Displays a list of files and all the lines that matches a search pattern.

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 a quick reference of key bindings.

Browsing State and User-defined Commands
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.

Some of the commands used or provided by Tig can be configured. This goes for some of the environment
variables as well as the external commands. These user-defined commands can use arguments that refer to
the current browsing state by using one of the following variables.

Table 1. Browsing state variables

%(head) The currently viewed head ID.
Defaults to HEAD

%(commit) The currently selected commit ID.

%(blob) The currently selected blob ID.

%(branch) The currently selected branch name.

%(remote) The currently selected remote name.
For remote branches %(branch) will
contain the branch name.

%(tag) The currently selected tag name.

%(stash) The currently selected stash name.

%(directory) The current directory path in the
tree view or "." if undefined.

%(file) The currently selected file.

%(lineno) The currently selected line number.
Defaults to 0.

%(ref) The reference given to blame or HEAD
if undefined.

%(revargs) The revision arguments passed on the
command line.

%(fileargs) The file arguments passed on the
command line.

%(cmdlineargs) All other options passed on the
command line.

%(diffargs) Options from diff-options or
TIG_DIFF_OPTS used by the diff and
stage view.

%(blameargs) Options from blame-options used by
the blame view.

%(logargs) Options from log-options used by the
log view.

%(mainargs) Options from main-options used by the
main view.

%(prompt) Prompt for the argument value.
Optionally specify a custom prompt
using "%(prompt Enter branch name: )"

%(text) The text of the currently selected
line.

%(repo:head) The name of the checked out branch,
e.g. master

%(repo:head-id) The commit ID of the checked out
branch.

%(repo:remote) The remote associated with the
checked out branch, e.g.
origin/master.

%(repo:cdup) The path to change directory to the
repository root, e.g. ../

%(repo:prefix) The path prefix of the current work
directory, e.g subdir/.

%(repo:git-dir) The path to the Git directory, e.g.
/src/repo/.git.

%(repo:worktree) The worktree path, if defined.

%(repo:is-inside-work-tree) Whether Tig is running inside a work
tree, either true or false.

Example user-defined commands:

• Allow to amend the last commit:

bind generic + !git commit --amend

• Copy commit ID to clipboard:

bind generic 9 !@sh -c "echo -n %(commit) | xclip -selection c"

• Add/edit notes for the current commit used during a review:

bind generic T !git notes edit %(commit)

• Enter Git’s interactive add for fine-grained staging of file content:

bind generic I !git add -i %(file)

• Rebase current branch on top of the selected branch:

bind refs 3 !git rebase -i %(branch)

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

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

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

Configuration Files
Upon startup, Tig first reads the system wide configuration file ({sysconfdir}/tigrc by default) and then
proceeds to read the user’s configuration file (~/.tigrc or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tig/config by default). The
paths to either of these files can be overridden through the following environment variables:

TIGRC_USER
Path of the user configuration file.

TIGRC_SYSTEM
Path of the system wide configuration file.

History Files
If compiled with readline support, Tig writes a persistent command and search history to ~/.tig_history
or $XDG_DATA_HOME/tig/history.

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 limit what branches are shown, say only show branches named master or those which start
with the feature/ prefix, you can do it by setting the following variable:

$ TIG_LS_REMOTE="git ls-remote . master feature/*" tig

Or set the variable permanently in your environment.

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

git ls-remote .

Diff options
It is possible to alter how diffs are shown by the diff view. If for example you prefer to have commit
and author dates shown as relative dates, use:

$ TIG_DIFF_OPTS="--relative-date" tig

Or set the variable permanently in your environment.

DEFAULT KEYBINDINGS

Below the default key bindings are shown.

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.

g Switch to grep view.

b Switch to blame view.

r Switch to refs view.

y Switch to stash view.

h Switch to help view

s Switch to status view

c Switch to stage view

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.

R Reload and refresh the current view.

O Maximize the current view to fill the
whole display.

Up This key is "context sensitive" and
will move the cursor one line up.
However, if you opened a split view
it will change the cursor to point to
the previous commit in the parent
view and update the child view to
display it. If you prefer this key to
move the cursor or scroll within the
diff view instead, use bind diff <Up>
move-up or bind diff <Up>
scroll-line-up, respectively.

Down Similar to Up but will move down.

, Move to parent. In the tree view,
this means switch to the parent
directory. In the blame view it will
load blame for the parent commit. For
merges the parent is queried.

View Specific Actions
Key Action

u Update status of file. In the status
view, this allows you to add an
untracked file or stage changes to a
file for next commit (similar to
running git-add <filename>). In the
stage view, when pressing this on a
diff chunk line stages only that
chunk for next commit, when not on a
diff chunk line all changes in the
displayed diff are staged.

M Resolve unmerged file by launching
git-mergetool(1). Note, to work
correctly this might require some
initial configuration of your
preferred merge tool. See the manpage
of git-mergetool(1).

! Checkout file with unstaged changes.
This will reset the file to contain
the content it had at last commit.

1 Stage single diff line.

@ Move to next chunk in the stage view.

] Increase the diff context.

[ Decrease the diff context.

Cursor Navigation
Key Action

k Move cursor one line up.

j Move cursor one line down.

PgUp,-,a Move cursor one page up.

PgDown, Space Move cursor one page down.

End Jump to last line.

Home Jump to first line.

Scrolling
Key Action

Insert Scroll view one line up.

Delete Scroll view one line down.

ScrollBack Scroll view one page up.

ScrollFwd Scroll view one page down.

Left Scroll view one column left.

Right Scroll view one column right.

| Scroll view to the first column.

Searching
Key Action

/ Search the view. Opens a prompt for
entering search regexp to use.

? Search backwards in the view. Also
prompts for regexp.

n Find next match for the current
search regexp.

N Find previous match for the current
search regexp.

Misc
Key Action

Q Quit.

<C-L> 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.

o Open option menu

# Toggle line numbers on/off.

D Toggle date display
on/off/relative/relative-compact/custom

A Toggle author display
on/off/abbreviated/email/email user
name.

G Toggle revision graph visualization
on/off.

~ Toggle (line) graphics mode

F Toggle reference display on/off (tag
and branch names).

W Toggle ignoring whitespace on/off for
diffs

X Toggle commit ID display on/off

% Toggle file filtering in order to see
the full diff instead of only the diff
concerning the currently selected file.

$ Toggle highlighting of commit title
overflow.

H Go to the HEAD commit.

: Open prompt. This allows you to specify
what command to run and also to jump to
a specific line, e.g. :23

e Open file in editor.

Prompt
Key Action

:<number> Jump to the specific line number,
e.g. :80.

:<sha> Jump to a specific commit, e.g.
:2f12bcc.

:<x> Execute the corresponding key
binding, e.g. :q.

:!<command> Execute a system command in a pager,
e.g. :!git log -p.

:<action> Execute a Tig command, e.g. :edit.

:goto <rev> Jump to a specific revision, e.g.
:goto %(commit)^2 to goto the current
commit’s 2nd parent or :goto
some/branch to goto the commit
denoting the branch some/branch.

:save-display <file> Save current display to <file>.

:save-options <file> Save current options to <file>.

:save-view <file> Save view info to <file> (for testing
purposes).

:script <file> Execute commands from <file>.

:exec <flags><args...> Execute command using <args> with
external user-defined command option
flags defined in <flags>.

:echo <args...> Display text in the status bar.

External Commands
For more custom needs, external commands provide a way to easily execute a script or program. They are
bound to keys and use information from the current browsing state, such as the current commit ID. Tig
comes with the following built-in external commands:
Keymap Key Action

main C git cherry-pick %(commit)

status C git commit

generic G git gc

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 variable described in the section on diff options.

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 Makefile README

To avoid ambiguity with Tig’s subcommands or repository references such as tag names, be sure to separate
file names from other Git options using "--". So if you have a file named status it will clash with the
status subcommand, and thus you will have to use:

$ tig -- status

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 changes 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 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 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 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
Revision 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

MORE INFORMATION

       Please visit Tig’s home page[1] or main Git repository[2] for information about new releases and how to
       report bugs and feature requests.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2006-2014 Jonas Fonseca <jonas.fonseca@gmail.com[3]>

       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.

NOTES

        1. home page
           https://jonas.github.io/tig

        2. main Git repository
           https://github.com/jonas/tig

        3. jonas.fonseca@gmail.com
           mailto:jonas.fonseca@gmail.com

Tig 2.5.1                                          01/05/2021                                       TIGMANUAL(7)