How can I find out what version of git I'm running?
GitGit Problem Overview
I'm trying to follow some tutorials to learn how to use Git but some of the instructions are for specific versions.
Is there a command that I can use find out what version I have installed?
Git Solutions
Solution 1 - Git
$ git --version
git version 1.7.3.4
git help
and man git
both hint at the available arguments you can pass to the command-line tool
Solution 2 - Git
If you're using the command-line tools, running git --version
should give you the version number.
Solution 3 - Git
In a command prompt:
$ git --version
Solution 4 - Git
Or even just
git version
Results in something like
> git version 1.8.3.msysgit.0
Solution 5 - Git
> git help
and man git
both hint at the available arguments you can pass to the command-line tool
Actually, the git version command finally gets an official help page with Git 2.34 (Q4 2021):
See commit b6d8887 (14 Sep 2021) by Matthias Aßhauer (rimrul
).
(Merged by Junio C Hamano -- gitster
-- in commit 188da7d, 23 Sep 2021)
> ## documentation
: add documentation for 'git version'
> Signed-off-by: Matthias Aßhauer
> While 'git version
'(man) is probably the least complex git command, it is a non-experimental user-facing builtin command.
> As such it should have a help page.
>
> Both git help
(man) and git version
can be called as options (--help
/--version
) that internally get converted to the corresponding command.
> Add a small paragraph to Documentation/git.txt
describing how these two options interact with each other and link to this help page for the sub-options that --version
can take.
> Well, currently there is only one sub-option, but that could potentially increase in future versions of Git.
git version
now includes in its man page:
> ## git-version(1)
>
> NAME
> ----
> git-version - Display version information about Git
>
> SYNOPSIS
> --------
>
> git version [--build-options]
>
> DESCRIPTION
> -----------
> With no options given, the version of 'git' is printed on the standard output.
>
> Note that git --version
is identical to git version
because the
> former is internally converted into the latter.
>
> OPTIONS
> -------
> ## --build-options
>
> Include additional information about how git was built for diagnostic
> purposes.
git
now includes in its man page:
>
> This option is internally converted to git version ...
and accepts
> the same options as the git version
command.
If --help
is also given, it takes precedence over --version
.
Solution 6 - Git
which git &> /dev/null || { echo >&2 "I require git but it's not installed. Aborting."; exit 1; }
echo "Git is installed."
That will echo "Git is installed" if it is, otherwise, it'll echo an error message. You can use this for scripts that use git
It's also customizable, so you can change "which git" to "which java" or something, and change the error message.