GITK(1)				  Git Manual			       GITK(1)

NAME
       gitk - The Git repository browser

SYNOPSIS
       gitk [<options>] [<revision-range>] [--] [<path>...]


DESCRIPTION
       Displays changes in a repository or a selected set of commits. This
       includes visualizing the commit graph, showing information related to
       each commit, and the files in the trees of each revision.

OPTIONS
       To control which revisions to show, gitk supports most options
       applicable to the git rev-list command. It also supports a few options
       applicable to the git diff-* commands to control how the changes each
       commit introduces are shown. Finally, it supports some gitk-specific
       options.

       gitk generally only understands options with arguments in the stuck
       form (see gitcli(7)) due to limitations in the command-line parser.

   rev-list options and arguments
       This manual page describes only the most frequently used options. See
       git-rev-list(1) for a complete list.

       --all
	   Show all refs (branches, tags, etc.).

       --branches[=<pattern>], --tags[=<pattern>], --remotes[=<pattern>]
	   Pretend as if all the branches (tags, remote branches, resp.) are
	   listed on the command line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given,
	   limit refs to ones matching given shell glob. If pattern lacks ?,
	   *, or [, /* at the end is implied.

       --since=<date>
	   Show commits more recent than a specific date.

       --until=<date>
	   Show commits older than a specific date.

       --date-order
	   Sort commits by date when possible.

       --merge
	   After an attempt to merge stops with conflicts, show the commits on
	   the history between two branches (i.e. the HEAD and the MERGE_HEAD)
	   that modify the conflicted files and do not exist on all the heads
	   being merged.

       --left-right
	   Mark which side of a symmetric difference a commit is reachable
	   from. Commits from the left side are prefixed with a < symbol and
	   those from the right with a > symbol.

       --full-history
	   When filtering history with <path>..., does not prune some history.
	   (See "History simplification" in git-log(1) for a more detailed
	   explanation.)

       --simplify-merges
	   Additional option to --full-history to remove some needless merges
	   from the resulting history, as there are no selected commits
	   contributing to this merge. (See "History simplification" in git-
	   log(1) for a more detailed explanation.)

       --ancestry-path
	   When given a range of commits to display (e.g.  commit1..commit2 or
	   commit2 ^commit1), only display commits that exist directly on the
	   ancestry chain between the commit1 and commit2, i.e. commits that
	   are both descendants of commit1, and ancestors of commit2. (See
	   "History simplification" in git-log(1) for a more detailed
	   explanation.)

       -L<start>,<end>:<file>, -L:<funcname>:<file>
	   Trace the evolution of the line range given by <start>,<end>, or by
	   the function name regex <funcname>, within the <file>. You may not
	   give any pathspec limiters. This is currently limited to a walk
	   starting from a single revision, i.e., you may only give zero or
	   one positive revision arguments, and <start> and <end> (or
	   <funcname>) must exist in the starting revision. You can specify
	   this option more than once. Implies --patch. Patch output can be
	   suppressed using --no-patch, but other diff formats (namely --raw,
	   --numstat, --shortstat, --dirstat, --summary, --name-only,
	   --name-status, --check) are not currently implemented.

	   <start> and <end> can take one of these forms:

	   •   <number>

	       If <start> or <end> is a number, it specifies an absolute line
	       number (lines count from 1).

	   •   /<regex>/

	       This form will use the first line matching the given POSIX
	       <regex>. If <start> is a regex, it will search from the end of
	       the previous -L range, if any, otherwise from the start of
	       file. If <start> is ^/<regex>/, it will search from the start
	       of file. If <end> is a regex, it will search starting at the
	       line given by <start>.

	   •   +<offset> or -<offset>

	       This is only valid for <end> and will specify a number of lines
	       before or after the line given by <start>.

	   If :<funcname> is given in place of <start> and <end>, it is a
	   regular expression that denotes the range from the first funcname
	   line that matches <funcname>, up to the next funcname line.
	   :<funcname> searches from the end of the previous -L range, if any,
	   otherwise from the start of file.  ^:<funcname> searches from the
	   start of file. The function names are determined in the same way as
	   git diff works out patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom
	   hunk-header in gitattributes(5)).

       <revision range>
	   Limit the revisions to show. This can be either a single revision
	   meaning show from the given revision and back, or it can be a range
	   in the form "<from>..<to>" to show all revisions between <from> and
	   back to <to>. Note, more advanced revision selection can be
	   applied. For a more complete list of ways to spell object names,
	   see gitrevisions(7).

       <path>...
	   Limit commits to the ones touching files in the given paths. Note,
	   to avoid ambiguity with respect to revision names use "--" to
	   separate the paths from any preceding options.

   gitk-specific options
       --argscmd=<command>
	   Command to be run each time gitk has to determine the revision
	   range to show. The command is expected to print on its standard
	   output a list of additional revisions to be shown, one per line.
	   Use this instead of explicitly specifying a <revision-range> if the
	   set of commits to show may vary between refreshes.

       --select-commit=<ref>
	   Select the specified commit after loading the graph. Default
	   behavior is equivalent to specifying --select-commit=HEAD.

EXAMPLES
       gitk v2.6.12.. include/scsi drivers/scsi
	   Show the changes since version v2.6.12 that changed any file in the
	   include/scsi or drivers/scsi subdirectories

       gitk --since="2 weeks ago" -- gitk
	   Show the changes during the last two weeks to the file gitk. The
	   "--" is necessary to avoid confusion with the branch named gitk

       gitk --max-count=100 --all -- Makefile
	   Show at most 100 changes made to the file Makefile. Instead of only
	   looking for changes in the current branch look in all branches.

FILES
       User configuration and preferences are stored at:

       •   $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/gitk if it exists, otherwise

       •   $HOME/.gitk if it exists

       If neither of the above exist then $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/gitk is created
       and used by default. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set it defaults to
       $HOME/.config in all cases.

HISTORY
       Gitk was the first graphical repository browser. It’s written in
       tcl/tk.

       gitk is actually maintained as an independent project, but stable
       versions are distributed as part of the Git suite for the convenience
       of end users.

       gitk-git/ comes from Paul Mackerras’s gitk project:

	   git://ozlabs.org/~paulus/gitk

SEE ALSO
       qgit(1)
	   A repository browser written in C++ using Qt.

       tig(1)
	   A minimal repository browser and Git tool output highlighter
	   written in C using Ncurses.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.51.0			  2025-08-17			       GITK(1)