# git-annotate(1) Manual Page

## NAME

git-annotate - Annotate file lines with commit information

## SYNOPSIS

git annotate [options] file [revision]

## DESCRIPTION

Annotates each line in the given file with information from the commit which introduced the line. Optionally annotates from a given revision.

The only difference between this command and git-blame(1) is that they use slightly different output formats, and this command exists only for backward compatibility to support existing scripts, and provide a more familiar command name for people coming from other SCM systems.

## OPTIONS

-b

  Show blank SHA-1 for boundary commits. This can also be controlled via the `blame.blankboundary` config option.

--root

  Do not treat root commits as boundaries. This can also be controlled via the `blame.showroot` config option.

--show-stats

  Include additional statistics at the end of blame output.

-L <start>,<end>

  Annotate only the given line range. <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 <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>.

-l

  Show long rev (Default: off).

-t

  Show raw timestamp (Default: off).

-S <revs-file>

  Use revisions from revs-file instead of calling git-rev-list(1).

--reverse

  Walk history forward instead of backward. Instead of showing the revision in which a line appeared, this shows the last revision in which a line has existed. This requires a range of revision like START..END where the path to blame exists in START.

-p
--porcelain

  Show in a format designed for machine consumption.

--incremental

  Show the result incrementally in a format designed for machine consumption.

--encoding=<encoding>

  Specifies the encoding used to output author names and commit summaries. Setting it to `none` makes blame output unconverted data. For more information see the discussion about encoding in the git-log(1) manual page.

--contents <file>

  When <rev> is not specified, the command annotates the changes starting backwards from the working tree copy. This flag makes the command pretend as if the working tree copy has the contents of the named file (specify `-` to make the command read from the standard input).

--date <format>

  The value is one of the following alternatives: {relative,local,default,iso,rfc,short}. If --date is not provided, the value of the blame.date config variable is used. If the blame.date config variable is also not set, the iso format is used. For more information, See the discussion of the --date option at git-log(1).

-M|<num>|

  Detect moving lines in the file as well. When a commit moves a block of lines in a file (e.g. the original file has A and then B, and the commit changes it to B and then A), the traditional blame algorithm typically blames the lines that were moved up (i.e. B) to the parent and assigns blame to the lines that were moved down (i.e. A) to the child commit. With this option, both groups of lines are blamed on the parent.

  <num> is optional but it is the lower bound on the number of alphanumeric characters that git must detect as moving within a file for it to associate those lines with the parent commit.

-C|<num>|

  In addition to `-M`, detect lines copied from other files that were modified in the same commit. This is useful when you reorganize your program and move code around across files. When this option is given twice, the command additionally looks for copies from all other files in the parent for the commit that creates the file.

  <num> is optional but it is the lower bound on the number of alphanumeric characters that git must detect as moving between files for it to associate those lines with the parent commit.

-h
--help

  Show help message.

## SEE ALSO

git-blame(1)

## AUTHOR

Written by Ryan Anderson <ryan@michonline.com>.

## GIT

Part of the git(1) suite