Why is "git grep" behaving erratic on my Windows PC? - windows

I'm using Github and Git bash on my Windows PC (running XP).
On Ubuuntu I'm happyily using git grep to plough through my code, but every time I call something like:
git grep "some text in my repo"
on Windows I get the results and afterwards I'm stuck with the bash window showing all kind of things [END], ~, [RETURN]... whenever I try to enter something.
Question:
What else besides CTRL+R, CTRL+Q, FN+END, Q, ESC can I try to not having to force-close and reopen git:bash in order to continue to work.
Thanks!
EDIT:
This is what I mean:
As soon as I start typing, the [END] string re-appears (or 50 lines ~) and I cannot write any command on Git, because whatever is in the way swallows half of what I'm typing.... nice description...

I was wondering about this also after installing git and running git bash. It seems "git grep" pipes commands through "less".
Solution: Just type q.

Is git launching less (or something similar) so up/down arrows on your keyboard scrolls through the matches? If you don't want that, try the instructions from https://stackoverflow.com/a/12166923/972216:
set GIT_PAGER=cat
Would disable it for your console session once, or
git config --global core.pager cat
to disable it for your account.

Related

How to quickly show program help in pager

I often find myself appending --help|less to commands that I am crafting a command in a shell to explore the CLI of the program I am using. What ways are there to accomplish the same thing with fewer key-presses?
For instance, if I wanted to use the new way of switching branches (I don't, I'm stuck in my ways happily doing git checkout -b other_branch) then my history (and thought process) could look like
git change other_branch # Guess what the command should be
git --help|less # Backtrack to where I am confident I know the command and ask for help
git switch --help|less # Gradually build up the command from there
git switch other_branch
For context:
I typically want the pager either to be able to search or because I am working in tmux and activating scrolling takes a few additional, and awkward, key-presses.
I typically use zsh on Ubuntu or Debian.
I typically use arrow up to iterate on my previous command.
Add the following to your .zshrc file:
# Alt-H: Open `man` page of current command.
unalias run-help
autoload -Uz run-help{,-{git,ip,openssl,p4,sudo,svk,svn}}
Then restart your shell.
Now, whenever you're in the middle of typing a command, you can press AltH (^[h) to immediately open the man page for that command. Then, after you quit your pager, Zsh will will automatically restore your command line, so you can finish typing.

How to prevent vim process substitution (ie. git ls echoing versus redirected to vim)

git branch drops the output to, seemingly, vim rather than just dumping the branch list straight to the terminal.
I know I could do something like git config alias.ls '!git branch | cat' but that doesn't play well with arguments.
Is there a way to simply disable git from redirecting to vim?
Fwiw, I'm using Oh My ZSH / ZSH; however, I tried similar commands in vanilla bash in both iTerm2 and Terminal with the same results.
Usually the pager you're using is less, unless otherwise specified. However, regardless of the pager you're using, you can turn it off.
If you want the pager off for one command, do git --no-pager branch (for example), but note that the --no-pager goes before the command. This is great for aliases. If you want the pager off for all commands, set core.pager to cat, and Git will not invoke the pager. There is not a way to disable it just for one command and not others.
Note that the pager is not invoked by default for commands where the output is not a TTY, so if you're scripting, it's automatically disabled.

Git for windows paging

Whenever I execute git log command it cannot be terminated. If I do Ctrl + C it exits paging environment but if I start to type anything it starts git log command again.
as mentioned already, git log -X will limit your output to the last X commits.
Git log and other git commands invoke the less command. This is the pager. To get help with the pager, type ? or h when looking at the output. You will now see the help for the less command. Quitting less is easy, just type q.
If you don't want log to use a pager utility, you can instruct git not to use it with:
git --no-pager log
Git log has a lot of options. To get a quick overview of what has happened, I use
git log --graph --oneline --decorate --all
Decorate can be set to be enabled by default through config so you don't have to issue it.
If you think that's a lot to write on the command line, you're right! Bash has a quick remedy for that: CTRL-R. Press that and start typing 'graph'. You should get the last time that you typed that long command. This is one reason I don't bother with git aliases; it's easy to search your command history which persists from session to session.
Further, you can limit the output of git log to a particular author or particular date range, etc.
Have fun exploring and stick to the command line. It's what git was meant to be used on. You will also be introduced to a lot of excellent bash techniques that will help you a ton as you get going further with git.
You can limit the number of commits to be shown with:
git log -n 10
To limit only to the last 10 commits.
You can use also some kind of graphic interface for git, like gitk or tig or git-cola.
Check for other gui clients here.

What is the best way to use "git add -p" in emacs on Windows?

Problem:
git add -p seems unusable in either emacs shell or eshell
magit (a frequently suggested alternative to using git from the shell in emacs) sucks balls on Windows (it's horrendously slow.)
Keeping a cygwin window open and using that for git add -p and then going back and forth between that and emacs is doable, but more than a little annoying.
Is there any way that under Microsoft Windows I can get either git add -p to work well in shell or eshell or alternatively get magit to be somewhat usable?
If magit is slow, that probably indicates problems with your windows git client?
I would look into that first and foremost (because git add -p really doesn't hold a candle to magit's interface, IMO).
What are the exact tools (and versions thereof) which you are using?
You should definitely check the magit issue tracker to see if there are known reasons why magit might be slow.
Have you tried:
% EDITOR=emacsclient git add -e <files>
and then using the diff-mode commands in your running emacs to interactively edit the hunks of the patch?
Then you will be able to split hunks within the patch at any particular line with diff-split-hunk and remove hunks entirely with diff-hunk-kill (and of course these commands are bound to shorter key sequences for quick interactive use). When you are done editting the patch, use C-x # to save it and quit the emacsclient session (so that you can go back to your shell).
(emacsclient, if you are not familiar with it, is a program that will let you open files in an already-running emacs, as long as the latter has started up a server for emacsclient to connect to; see the M-x describe-function server-start)
Note that you will probably want to customize how emacsclient interacts with git a little bit; for example, see these answers: Using ediff as git mergetool and How to set the exit status for emacsclient.

Git Windows Command Prompt gets stuck during Git commands with (END)

I've got Git for Windows setup (msysgit) and it was working fine for the last few days and today I've encountered an odd error.
When issuing a Git command in the Windows Command Prompt or in the Git Bash that comes bundled with msysgit, I get a strange '(END)' line appear and then I cannot issue any other comamnds.
At this point all I get are system beeps.
Any ideas?
Thanks, P.
Git want to show more than one screen of information to you, to do so it call the standard unix pager program less. Just type q to return to the prompt when you no longer want to navigate in the output.
j move one line down
k move one line up
<space> move one page down
b move one page up
h show the help
If you want to use git efficiently you should learn the basic unix tools. Even if git build and run on windows it's pretty much an alien software on the platform.
If you don't want less just replace it with another pager in the configuration. If you don't want a pager at all just use cat :
git config --global --add core.pager cat
Press q to exit the pager (which is less in git by default).
I first came across this question when I was looking for the same thing; to not have to exit out of the log command. I have since found the answer I like, so even though it is well after the original asking I will add this answer to provide an additional solution that I didn't find quickly in my own search.
Others have stated why the (END) is present -- the results are being piped thru a pager, one that can be configured for a different pager.
However, I sometimes don't want it to stop at all; because I've specified other options that do the limiting. I found that for this git has a global option --no-pager to turn off the whatever pager is defined in the config file.
This global option is on the git command itself, is available for all subcommands and is placed before the subcommand like this:
git --no-pager log
Git is using the "pager" called less, which allows you to scroll through large amount of program output easily. However, the default settings on Git for Windows seem to be to keep the pager running even when there is less than one screen of output.
Here is the default setting I had before, which would always show the (END) and wait for you to hit q before returning you to your prompt:
$ git config --get core.pager
less -+F
You can change the behavior so that less will only keep running (and take control of the keyboard) when there is more than a screenful of output by changing the option to -F instead of -+F.
Fix the pesky pager with
$ git config --global core.pager "less -F"
(The -+X option syntax for less is documented to reset the -X option to its "default", although that is not the behavior I observed with -+F since removing the option altogether was equivalent to -F, not -+F.)

Resources