diff --git a/Documentation/config/alias.txt b/Documentation/config/alias.txt index 0b14178314..f1ca739d57 100644 --- a/Documentation/config/alias.txt +++ b/Documentation/config/alias.txt @@ -1,18 +1,28 @@ alias.*:: Command aliases for the linkgit:git[1] command wrapper - e.g. - after defining "alias.last = cat-file commit HEAD", the invocation - "git last" is equivalent to "git cat-file commit HEAD". To avoid + after defining `alias.last = cat-file commit HEAD`, the invocation + `git last` is equivalent to `git cat-file commit HEAD`. To avoid confusion and troubles with script usage, aliases that hide existing Git commands are ignored. Arguments are split by spaces, the usual shell quoting and escaping is supported. A quote pair or a backslash can be used to quote them. + +Note that the first word of an alias does not necessarily have to be a +command. It can be a command-line option that will be passed into the +invocation of `git`. In particular, this is useful when used with `-c` +to pass in one-time configurations or `-p` to force pagination. For example, +`loud-rebase = -c commit.verbose=true rebase` can be defined such that +running `git loud-rebase` would be equivalent to +`git -c commit.verbose=true rebase`. Also, `ps = -p status` would be a +helpful alias since `git ps` would paginate the output of `git status` +where the original command does not. ++ If the alias expansion is prefixed with an exclamation point, it will be treated as a shell command. For example, defining -"alias.new = !gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD", the invocation -"git new" is equivalent to running the shell command -"gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD". Note that shell commands will be +`alias.new = !gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD`, the invocation +`git new` is equivalent to running the shell command +`gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD`. Note that shell commands will be executed from the top-level directory of a repository, which may not necessarily be the current directory. -`GIT_PREFIX` is set as returned by running 'git rev-parse --show-prefix' +`GIT_PREFIX` is set as returned by running `git rev-parse --show-prefix` from the original current directory. See linkgit:git-rev-parse[1].