SYNOPSIS
--------
[verse]
-'git blame' [-c] [-b] [-l] [--root] [-t] [-f] [-n] [-s] [-e] [-p] [-w] [--incremental] [-L n,m]
- [-S <revs-file>] [-M] [-C] [-C] [-C] [--since=<date>] [--abbrev=<n>]
- [<rev> | --contents <file> | --reverse <rev>] [--] <file>
+'git blame' [-c] [-b] [-l] [--root] [-t] [-f] [-n] [-s] [-e] [-p] [-w] [--incremental]
+ [-L <range>] [-S <revs-file>] [-M] [-C] [-C] [-C] [--since=<date>]
+ [--abbrev=<n>] [<rev> | --contents <file> | --reverse <rev>] [--] <file>
DESCRIPTION
-----------
Annotates each line in the given file with information from the revision which
last modified the line. Optionally, start annotating from the given revision.
-The command can also limit the range of lines annotated.
+When specified one or more times, `-L` restricts annotation to the requested
+lines.
+
+The origin of lines is automatically followed across whole-file
+renames (currently there is no option to turn the rename-following
+off). To follow lines moved from one file to another, or to follow
+lines that were copied and pasted from another file, etc., see the
+`-C` and `-M` options.
The report does not tell you anything about lines which have been deleted or
replaced; you need to use a tool such as 'git diff' or the "pickaxe"
interface briefly mentioned in the following paragraph.
-Apart from supporting file annotation, git also supports searching the
+Apart from supporting file annotation, Git also supports searching the
development history for when a code snippet occurred in a change. This makes it
possible to track when a code snippet was added to a file, moved or copied
between files, and eventually deleted or replaced. It works by searching for
-a text string in the diff. A small example:
+a text string in the diff. A small example of the pickaxe interface
+that searches for `blame_usage`:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ git log --pretty=oneline -S'blame_usage'
at least once for each commit:
- the author name ("author"), email ("author-mail"), time
- ("author-time"), and timezone ("author-tz"); similarly
+ ("author-time"), and time zone ("author-tz"); similarly
for committer.
- the filename in the commit that the line is attributed to.
- the first line of the commit log message ("summary").
Unlike 'git blame' and 'git annotate' in older versions of git, the extent
of the annotation can be limited to both line ranges and revision
-ranges. When you are interested in finding the origin for
+ranges. The `-L` option, which limits annotation to a range of lines, may be
+specified multiple times.
+
+When you are interested in finding the origin for
lines 40-60 for file `foo`, you can use the `-L` option like so
(they mean the same thing -- both ask for 21 lines starting at
line 40):