git-hub subcommand to open github with browser from terminal

February 13, 2013

The UI of github is cool, referenceable and capable. We can tell a line of a source file as easy as poining it with an URL like this. That's very nice to write a specific link in a commit on a BTS.

However, when we want to get a link, we have to sometimes dig into the target file clicking over and over. That's a bit stressful.

Then, you may be happy if you install git-hub. (now, this works only for MacOSX. Please let me know how to open on other platforms)

When you want to open a page for a file at the deep bototm of source tree, then you alreadly know the filename, you can type as following using git-hub to directly open. It's very useful than I expected.

$ git hub blob <part-of-filename>

For example, let's play git-hub on mruby.

Install git-hub, that's very easy.

$ git clone git://github.com/tmtk75/git-hub.git ~/.git-hub
$ PATH=$PATH:~/.git-hub

Clone mruby, open vs2012.rake The page is opened with your default browser.

$ git clone git://github.com/mruby/mruby.git
$ cd mruby
$ git hub blob v22012.rake

If there are many files with same name, how do it work? Let's try.

$ git hub blob README.md
INFO: more than two lines matched like
1  README.md
2 doc/compile/README.md
3 doc/mrbgems/README.md
4 examples/mrbgems/c_and_ruby_extension_example/README.md
5 examples/mrbgems/c_extension_example/README.md
6 examples/mrbgems/ruby_extension_example/README.md
7 test/README.md

If you'd like to choose the line latter than 1st one without changing the pattern,
please try specifying index to select like

git hub blob README.md:2

git-hub prints all candidates for README.md, and if you want to open 3rd one doc/mrbgems/README.md, you type as git hub blob README.md:3. Without typing long path, you just need to choose a path in the list.

For other functions, there are commits, compare, branches. Please see the README of git-hub.