The git help command on Windows (msysgit distribution) spawns web browser each time I run it. I tried git help -m which reports "No manual entry for ..." and git help -i which says "info: Terminal type 'msys' is not smart enough to run Info." The same happens in bash under Cygwin.
Is there any sensible way to get light-weight help in cmd terminal?
Update for Git 2.x (June 2017, Git 2.13.1)
You still don't have man:
> git -c help.format=man help add
warning: failed to exec 'man': No such file or directory
fatal: no man viewer handled the request
Same for git <verb> --help.
git <verb> -h does not print the man page, only the short usage section (nothing to do with man)
No, even though an alternative, based on a 'cat' of the htlp txt files, is suggested in "how do I get git to show command-line help in windows?".
There man.<tool>.cmd config introduced in 2008, allows to set a custom command, but msys shell isn't shipped with man.exe.
It works for particular commands: git <command> -h
Edit, thanks to @the-happy-hippo
But it shows only a brief description, not the full one, as git help <command> or git <command> --help gives on Windows.
git <verb> -h shows a command usage in the same terminal window.
On the other hand, git <verb> --help and git help <verb> open a browser.
World's most overengineered workaround for this problem: use WSL
(that is, unless you already are a WSL user, in which case it's merely an ordinary workaround)
bash -c 'git help fetch' etc.Here's an alias for that last one:
[alias]
hep = "!f() { $SYSTEMROOT/System32/bash -c \"git help $1\"; }; f"
(And no you can't override git built-ins, but you can make a shell command to intercept and reroute help.)
