1git-notes(1) 2============ 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-notes - Add or inspect object notes 7 8SYNOPSIS 9-------- 10[verse] 11'git notes' [list [<object>]] 12'git notes' add [-f] [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] 13'git notes' copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> <to-object> ) 14'git notes' append [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] 15'git notes' edit [--allow-empty] [<object>] 16'git notes' show [<object>] 17'git notes' merge [-v | -q] [-s <strategy> ] <notes-ref> 18'git notes' merge --commit [-v | -q] 19'git notes' merge --abort [-v | -q] 20'git notes' remove [--ignore-missing] [--stdin] [<object>...] 21'git notes' prune [-n | -v] 22'git notes' get-ref 23 24 25DESCRIPTION 26----------- 27Adds, removes, or reads notes attached to objects, without touching 28the objects themselves. 29 30By default, notes are saved to and read from `refs/notes/commits`, but 31this default can be overridden. See the OPTIONS, CONFIGURATION, and 32ENVIRONMENT sections below. If this ref does not exist, it will be 33quietly created when it is first needed to store a note. 34 35A typical use of notes is to supplement a commit message without 36changing the commit itself. Notes can be shown by 'git log' along with 37the original commit message. To distinguish these notes from the 38message stored in the commit object, the notes are indented like the 39message, after an unindented line saying "Notes (<refname>):" (or 40"Notes:" for `refs/notes/commits`). 41 42Notes can also be added to patches prepared with `git format-patch` by 43using the `--notes` option. Such notes are added as a patch commentary 44after a three dash separator line. 45 46To change which notes are shown by 'git log', see the 47"notes.displayRef" configuration in linkgit:git-log[1]. 48 49See the "notes.rewrite.<command>" configuration for a way to carry 50notes across commands that rewrite commits. 51 52 53SUBCOMMANDS 54----------- 55 56list:: 57 List the notes object for a given object. If no object is 58 given, show a list of all note objects and the objects they 59 annotate (in the format "<note object> <annotated object>"). 60 This is the default subcommand if no subcommand is given. 61 62add:: 63 Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). Abort if the 64 object already has notes (use `-f` to overwrite existing notes). 65 However, if you're using `add` interactively (using an editor 66 to supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting - 67 the existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the `edit` 68 subcommand). 69 70copy:: 71 Copy the notes for the first object onto the second object. 72 Abort if the second object already has notes, or if the first 73 object has none (use -f to overwrite existing notes to the 74 second object). This subcommand is equivalent to: 75 `git notes add [-f] -C $(git notes list <from-object>) <to-object>` 76+ 77In `--stdin` mode, take lines in the format 78+ 79---------- 80<from-object> SP <to-object> [ SP <rest> ] LF 81---------- 82+ 83on standard input, and copy the notes from each <from-object> to its 84corresponding <to-object>. (The optional `<rest>` is ignored so that 85the command can read the input given to the `post-rewrite` hook.) 86 87append:: 88 Append to the notes of an existing object (defaults to HEAD). 89 Creates a new notes object if needed. 90 91edit:: 92 Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). 93 94show:: 95 Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). 96 97merge:: 98 Merge the given notes ref into the current notes ref. 99 This will try to merge the changes made by the given 100 notes ref (called "remote") since the merge-base (if 101 any) into the current notes ref (called "local"). 102+ 103If conflicts arise and a strategy for automatically resolving 104conflicting notes (see the -s/--strategy option) is not given, 105the "manual" resolver is used. This resolver checks out the 106conflicting notes in a special worktree (`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), 107and instructs the user to manually resolve the conflicts there. 108When done, the user can either finalize the merge with 109'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with 110'git notes merge --abort'. 111 112remove:: 113 Remove the notes for given objects (defaults to HEAD). When 114 giving zero or one object from the command line, this is 115 equivalent to specifying an empty note message to 116 the `edit` subcommand. 117 118prune:: 119 Remove all notes for non-existing/unreachable objects. 120 121get-ref:: 122 Print the current notes ref. This provides an easy way to 123 retrieve the current notes ref (e.g. from scripts). 124 125OPTIONS 126------- 127-f:: 128--force:: 129 When adding notes to an object that already has notes, 130 overwrite the existing notes (instead of aborting). 131 132-m <msg>:: 133--message=<msg>:: 134 Use the given note message (instead of prompting). 135 If multiple `-m` options are given, their values 136 are concatenated as separate paragraphs. 137 Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a 138 single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. 139 140-F <file>:: 141--file=<file>:: 142 Take the note message from the given file. Use '-' to 143 read the note message from the standard input. 144 Lines starting with `#` and empty lines other than a 145 single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. 146 147-C <object>:: 148--reuse-message=<object>:: 149 Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the 150 note message. (Use `git notes copy <object>` instead to 151 copy notes between objects.) 152 153-c <object>:: 154--reedit-message=<object>:: 155 Like '-C', but with '-c' the editor is invoked, so that 156 the user can further edit the note message. 157 158--allow-empty:: 159 Allow an empty note object to be stored. The default behavior is 160 to automatically remove empty notes. 161 162--ref <ref>:: 163 Manipulate the notes tree in <ref>. This overrides 164 'GIT_NOTES_REF' and the "core.notesRef" configuration. The ref 165 specifies the full refname when it begins with `refs/notes/`; when it 166 begins with `notes/`, `refs/` and otherwise `refs/notes/` is prefixed 167 to form a full name of the ref. 168 169--ignore-missing:: 170 Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an 171 object that does not have notes attached to it. 172 173--stdin:: 174 Also read the object names to remove notes from from the standard 175 input (there is no reason you cannot combine this with object 176 names from the command line). 177 178-n:: 179--dry-run:: 180 Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes 181 would be removed. 182 183-s <strategy>:: 184--strategy=<strategy>:: 185 When merging notes, resolve notes conflicts using the given 186 strategy. The following strategies are recognized: "manual" 187 (default), "ours", "theirs", "union" and "cat_sort_uniq". 188 See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section below for more 189 information on each notes merge strategy. 190 191--commit:: 192 Finalize an in-progress 'git notes merge'. Use this option 193 when you have resolved the conflicts that 'git notes merge' 194 stored in .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. This amends the partial 195 merge commit created by 'git notes merge' (stored in 196 .git/NOTES_MERGE_PARTIAL) by adding the notes in 197 .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. The notes ref stored in the 198 .git/NOTES_MERGE_REF symref is updated to the resulting commit. 199 200--abort:: 201 Abort/reset a in-progress 'git notes merge', i.e. a notes merge 202 with conflicts. This simply removes all files related to the 203 notes merge. 204 205-q:: 206--quiet:: 207 When merging notes, operate quietly. 208 209-v:: 210--verbose:: 211 When merging notes, be more verbose. 212 When pruning notes, report all object names whose notes are 213 removed. 214 215 216DISCUSSION 217---------- 218 219Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object 220(usually information to supplement a commit's message). These blobs 221are taken from notes refs. A notes ref is usually a branch which 222contains "files" whose paths are the object names for the objects 223they describe, with some directory separators included for performance 224reasons footnote:[Permitted pathnames have the form 225'ab'`/`'cd'`/`'ef'`/`'...'`/`'abcdef...': a sequence of directory 226names of two hexadecimal digits each followed by a filename with the 227rest of the object ID.]. 228 229Every notes change creates a new commit at the specified notes ref. 230You can therefore inspect the history of the notes by invoking, e.g., 231`git log -p notes/commits`. Currently the commit message only records 232which operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is 233determined according to the usual rules (see linkgit:git-commit[1]). 234These details may change in the future. 235 236It is also permitted for a notes ref to point directly to a tree 237object, in which case the history of the notes can be read with 238`git log -p -g <refname>`. 239 240 241NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES 242---------------------- 243 244The default notes merge strategy is "manual", which checks out 245conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts 246(`.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE`), and instructs the user to resolve the 247conflicts in that work tree. 248When done, the user can either finalize the merge with 249'git notes merge --commit', or abort the merge with 250'git notes merge --abort'. 251 252"ours" automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local 253version (i.e. the current notes ref). 254 255"theirs" automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote 256version (i.e. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes 257ref). 258 259"union" automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the 260local and remote versions. 261 262"cat_sort_uniq" is similar to "union", but in addition to concatenating 263the local and remote versions, this strategy also sorts the resulting 264lines, and removes duplicate lines from the result. This is equivalent 265to applying the "cat | sort | uniq" shell pipeline to the local and 266remote versions. This strategy is useful if the notes follow a line-based 267format where one wants to avoid duplicated lines in the merge result. 268Note that if either the local or remote version contain duplicate lines 269prior to the merge, these will also be removed by this notes merge 270strategy. 271 272 273EXAMPLES 274-------- 275 276You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not 277available at the time a commit was written. 278 279------------ 280$ git notes add -m 'Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>' 72a144e2 281$ git show -s 72a144e 282[...] 283 Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> 284 285Notes: 286 Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org> 287------------ 288 289In principle, a note is a regular Git blob, and any kind of 290(non-)format is accepted. You can binary-safely create notes from 291arbitrary files using 'git hash-object': 292 293------------ 294$ cc *.c 295$ blob=$(git hash-object -w a.out) 296$ git notes --ref=built add --allow-empty -C "$blob" HEAD 297------------ 298 299(You cannot simply use `git notes --ref=built add -F a.out HEAD` 300because that is not binary-safe.) 301Of course, it doesn't make much sense to display non-text-format notes 302with 'git log', so if you use such notes, you'll probably need to write 303some special-purpose tools to do something useful with them. 304 305 306CONFIGURATION 307------------- 308 309core.notesRef:: 310 Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of 311 `refs/notes/commits`. Must be an unabbreviated ref name. 312 This setting can be overridden through the environment and 313 command line. 314 315notes.displayRef:: 316 Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in 317 addition to the default set by `core.notesRef` or 318 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit 319 messages with the 'git log' family of commands. 320 This setting can be overridden on the command line or by the 321 'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF' environment variable. 322 See linkgit:git-log[1]. 323 324notes.rewrite.<command>:: 325 When rewriting commits with <command> (currently `amend` or 326 `rebase`), if this variable is `false`, git will not copy 327 notes from the original to the rewritten commit. Defaults to 328 `true`. See also "`notes.rewriteRef`" below. 329+ 330This setting can be overridden by the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' 331environment variable. 332 333notes.rewriteMode:: 334 When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target 335 commit already has a note. Must be one of `overwrite`, 336 `concatenate`, and `ignore`. Defaults to `concatenate`. 337+ 338This setting can be overridden with the `GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE` 339environment variable. 340 341notes.rewriteRef:: 342 When copying notes during a rewrite, specifies the (fully 343 qualified) ref whose notes should be copied. May be a glob, 344 in which case notes in all matching refs will be copied. You 345 may also specify this configuration several times. 346+ 347Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to 348enable note rewriting. 349+ 350Can be overridden with the 'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF' environment variable. 351 352 353ENVIRONMENT 354----------- 355 356'GIT_NOTES_REF':: 357 Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of `refs/notes/commits`. 358 This overrides the `core.notesRef` setting. 359 360'GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF':: 361 Colon-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs, 362 in addition to the default from `core.notesRef` or 363 'GIT_NOTES_REF', to read notes from when showing commit 364 messages. 365 This overrides the `notes.displayRef` setting. 366+ 367A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob that 368does not match any refs is silently ignored. 369 370'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE':: 371 When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target 372 commit already has a note. 373 Must be one of `overwrite`, `concatenate`, and `ignore`. 374 This overrides the `core.rewriteMode` setting. 375 376'GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF':: 377 When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original 378 to the rewritten commit. Must be a colon-delimited list of 379 refs or globs. 380+ 381If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends 382on the `notes.rewrite.<command>` and `notes.rewriteRef` settings. 383 384GIT 385--- 386Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite