help.asc

Getting Help

If you ever need help while using Git, there are two equivalent ways to get the comprehensive manual page (manpage) help for any of the Git commands:

$ git help <verb>
$ git <verb> --help
$ man git-<verb>

For example, you can get the manpage help for the git config command by running

$ git help config

These commands are nice because you can access them anywhere, even offline. If the manpages and this book aren’t enough and you need in-person help, you can try the #git or #github channel on the Freenode IRC server, which can be found at https://freenode.net. These channels are regularly filled with hundreds of people who are all very knowledgeable about Git and are often willing to help.

In addition, if you don’t need the full-blown manpage help, but just need a quick refresher on the available options for a Git command, you can ask for the more concise `help'' output with the `-h or --help options, as in:

$ git add -h
usage: git add [<options>] [--] <pathspec>...

    -n, --dry-run         dry run
    -v, --verbose         be verbose

    -i, --interactive     interactive picking
    -p, --patch           select hunks interactively
    -e, --edit            edit current diff and apply
    -f, --force           allow adding otherwise ignored files
    -u, --update          update tracked files
    --renormalize         renormalize EOL of tracked files (implies -u)
    -N, --intent-to-add   record only the fact that the path will be added later
    -A, --all             add changes from all tracked and untracked files
    --ignore-removal      ignore paths removed in the working tree (same as --no-all)
    --refresh             don't add, only refresh the index
    --ignore-errors       just skip files which cannot be added because of errors
    --ignore-missing      check if - even missing - files are ignored in dry run
    --chmod (+|-)x        override the executable bit of the listed files